For women in rural Mexico, a few chickens can provide nutritious food at home, a source of additional income, and an opportunity to build a small business of their own.
Grupo Murlota, a Mexican social enterprise, has been putting that simple idea into practice. Founder and CEO Itzel Suárez Román created the business to strengthen food security and generate income in rural communities through an accessible, home-based poultry model.
Today, Grupo Murlota has helped more than 65,000 women across Mexico launch their own egg operations—from small backyard flocks for household consumption to commercial businesses with more than 1,000 birds.
Grupo Murlota provides participants with healthy, fully vaccinated hens, along with coops, feeders, water stations, and hands-on training to care for their flocks.
The model is intentionally practical. Families can consume the eggs they produce, reducing what they need to purchase for the household, and sell the surplus to generate additional income.
As Itzel explains in the video, the goal goes beyond poultry production. It is about helping communities produce more of their own food while creating economic opportunities for people who may have limited access to formal employment.
Beneficial Returns has provided Grupo Murlota with two loans totaling $370,000. Our first loan helped finance a poultry research center in Sinaloa. Our second loan supports a new research center in Jalisco, where Grupo Murlota will breed and raise its own laying hens.
Access to healthy, high-quality birds has been an important constraint on Grupo Murlota’s ability to grow. The new Jalisco facility will allow the company to increase its own supply of laying hens rather than relying as heavily on third-party suppliers, helping it expand its programs and reach more producers.
Beneficial Returns provides debt financing to social enterprises like Grupo Murlota that are building sustainable solutions to poverty across Latin America and Southeast Asia.