Behind the glitz of a well furnished banana processing plant, dedicated staff and a host of coveted accolades that define Kenya’s Stawi Foods and Fruits company, is the inspiring tale of 26 year old agripreneur with the tenacity of a hawk, who has provided ready market for hundreds of banana farmers in Kenya while redefining value addition in a country that boasts of over 400,000 smallholder banana farmers.
Eric Muthomi a law graduate from Catholic University of East Africa saw a marketing opportunity when banana farmers were buffeted by a glut. “It has been the same cycle over and over. Farmers would invest heavily in banana farming, only to end up disappointed by an oversupply in the market or poor pay by middlemen. I thought farmers deserved better,” says the soft spoken Eric.
The idea of Stawi Foods was thus hatched. The company enters into a contract with organized farmer groups where they buy the bananas from them, process them into banana flour and package them ready for the market. The multipurpose Banana flour branded as Stawi Natural Banana Flour, is commonly used to make baby food, porridge, pasta, food fortification and pizza base among others.
Beside the six permanent staff employed in sales, quality control, accounting and store keeping, the company also hires on casual basis another 20 mostly women and youth to assist in the laborious banana peeling process. “I am a young entrepreneur with a passion of building a great food enterprise that will add value to society in terms of nutritional value for consumers of our products and economic prosperity to our employees, farmers and shareholders,” Eric says.
Swahili for prosperity, Stawi’s business philosophy has been hinged on three aspects. Prosperity for healthy eating as bananas emerge as one of the most nutritious foods globally, prosperity of the banana farmers who now have a guaranteed market for their produce and prosperity for the business itself. Says he.“We are motivated by a desire to create something great that will last beyond it’s founders and create lasting impact on society.”
And although the company is still in its infancy, having only been registered in early 2011, and as yet still strategizing how to capture a huge portion of the market, its only a matter of time before it causes ripples both locally and beyond borders if previous accolades are anything to go by. Within the one year of operation, Eric has steered Stawi foods to three prestigious wins. This year, the young agripreneur was feted by Kenya’s Ministry of Industrialization through its Jitihada business plan competition that targets innovative business ideas that can be nurtured for growth. . He beat 3,439 other participants from young and upcoming manufacturing firms across the country to emerge the 2012 overall winner.
And last year Stawi Foods won top prize in the 2011 Nature Challenge Africa competition, an initiative sponsored by Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Kenya in partnership with NETFUND that boosts businesses on sustainable use of natural resources in Africa. The same year saw the company win in the Chase Bank Enablis ILO Business Launch Pad competition in the Agribusiness Agro-processing category. The competition rewards the most exciting and promising business plan among Kenyan entepreurs.
Yet it hasnt been a walk in the park for this vanguard agripreneur, what with the high cost of doing business in the country, but the bedrock of Eric’s success is hinged on the zeal to lift farmers fortunes while introducing unique products in the market. “The country needs young people to take up agriculture and come in with new ideas that will spur growth in the sector and contribute towards food security. If the youth do not do this, a huge gap will be exist that might be filled by the Chinese,” says the Eric who draws inspiration from succesful business leaders like Kenya’s Dr. James Mwangi of Equity Bank who was recently named the Ernst and Young’s world entepreneur of the year 2012.
