Frank Omondi had been in the macadamia business for nine years as an exporter. However, he was disturbed by middlemen taking advantage of smallholder farmers. He saw it as middlemen taking home margins as high as 38 percent while small farmers, who form the bulk of macadamia growers, receiving a paltry 15 percent.
“To change this, we became the world’s first Fair Trade-certified producer of macadamia nuts,” says the co-founder and CEO at Grow Fairly, a macadamia and cashew nuts processor based in Kilifi County. Presently, Grow Fairly has onboarded 15,000 cashew and 9,000 macadamia farmers and installed a factory with a capacity to process 400 to 600 tons and 600 to 700 tons of macadamia and cashew nuts respectively, every month.
In raising capital, he says, what he has learned is that “you can have as many documents and good ideas but your relationship with your fundraisers, either in equity or partners or in debt, matters [because] they buy you.”
Bringing on board the development partners has helped with the training of farmers, ensuring that quality is tip-top and setting the company on a firm growth path since their goal goes beyond profits.
Source: businessdailyafrica.com