To Pauline Kimani, the director of Pamat Foods Limited, farming was a perfect idea of earning a living to supplement the family income. She was in the horticulture sector, growing tomatoes and other green vegetables. Although she was successful, the returns from the sale of her crops were not as rewarding as she expected because of exploitation by middlemen and brokers. If anyone refused to sell to the brokers, they would abandon the produce to rot in the farm and influence other buyers not to buy from the farmer.
“I remember very well how it happened to me some time back. I did not comply with the middlemen and my tomatoes went to waste as they got rotten here in the house. I just gave them to my chicken” Says Pauline.
She got thinking about value addition and decided to give it a try.
“That is how I started with the business I now have and since then, I have never looked back.”
Pamat Foods Enterprises was registered in 2014 but did not became fully operational until February 2015. Pauline started by milling banana flour and thought she was doing perfectly well until she joined the SWITCH Africa Green project through Kenya Private Sector Alliance and Kenya Agribusiness and Agroindustry Association. Through this SWITCH Africa Green project, Capacity enhancement for green business development and eco-entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector Pauline attended several trainings in green business solutions and sustainable consumption and production principles, bookkeeping, marketing and business planning which were very relevant to her business.
“It opened my eyes and mind on how things can be done differently to generate maximum returns,” says Pauline of the training.
As a result, Pauline introduced several changes to her business starting with diversification of the products by adding cassava, sweet potatoes, arrowroots, finger millet, sorghum and amaranth (widely used as a traditional vegetable in Kenya) to banana flour processing. She also made changes to bookkeeping and financial accounting where she changed from manual to quick book then computerized all transactions of the Pamat Foods.
When the SAG project team visited her business, Pauline realized a lot more needed to be done.
“We used to take water to the enterprise by using a horse pipe and a lot of water was going to waste through leakages”, Pauline narrates. “I was advised to install proper piping which I did.”
The team found out that Pauline’s household shared one water meter with the enterprise making it hard for her to determine how much water the business was actually consuming. The team advised her to separate the meters. Through proper piping and metre separation, Pamat Foods has seen a reduction in water costs and is able to monitor what is consumed by the enterprise.
Her packaging was not properly branded or labelled something that changed thanks to the advice she got from the project staff during the visit.
“We never used to indicate the manufacturing and expiry dates in the packaging of our products, but this is now being done as you can see on each of the packets,” Pauline says as a matter of fact.
To reduce waste, Pauline plans to acquire a water recycling machine so that, she can reuse wastewater as sometimes, there is water shortage which means that once they finish whatever is in the storage tank, no production can proceed.
“As you can see, the piped water is not flowing today, if I had the recycling machine, I would still be having water in my reservoir” Says Pauline.
From the humble beginning of the enterprise and the journey with SWITCH Africa Green, Pauline’s business now boasts of over 90 outlets dealing in her products with profits soaring upwards. In 2015, Pamat Foods used to make only Ksh. 250,000 (USD 2,500) per month but now makes Ksh. 1.2 million (USD 12,000) which is attributed to SWITCH Africa Green through KAAA as they have mentored Pauline. She is confident in her business and can promote her products anywhere. Pauline has decided to venture into more product diversification and has already acquired machines that process banana jam and crisps.
“Initially, I knew I wanted healthy products, that are done in a greener way,” says Pauline in conclusion. “You also have to look at the inner you; what do you have to give to the people? Is it something that you can be able to eat? Are you making it for making money or making something that will come back to your table?
