Nairobi News

The 2023 Annual Kenyan Food Event, attracted exhibitors across food and beverage, hospitality, manufacturing, producers, and processors, as sixty-six companies showcased their products at the three-day expo staged at Sarit Centre, Nairobi.

“Food Expo has not only allowed us to expose our products and brand to local distributors and international buyers, but also given us the opportunity to meet fellow exhibitors, and learn about their experiences, the products they offer, and discuss the possibility of collaborating or partnering on business opportunities,” Managing Director of Go Pro Foods, Raj Ram, told Nairobi News.

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Go Pro Foods sells ten cereal products under the brand name BHEEMS, inspired by a mythological character, ‘BHEEM’, from the Hindu epic Mahabharata who was said to be as powerful as 100, 000 elephants. Their milling facility comprises of second-generation plants that lead to the world-renowned Buhler colour sortex machine.

“We process our products twice to ensure maximum impurities are removed. Furthermore, we have an in-house QA manager to ensure all products are tested rigorously upon entry into the premises, throughout processing, and batch tested following packaging ready for dispatch,” explains Ram.

Driven by its mission ‘to transform and enrich the lives of people and communities across Africa’, Ram says that they are riding on the adage of “farm-to-table” to ensure that it provides nutritious food to its customers at an accessible price.

“Enrichment of life must start from your health. We look forward to getting involved in local sustainable projects surrounding farming, water, cooking, education, and health,” says Ram.

The University of Nairobi Women’s Economic Empowerment (UoN WEE) hub is one of the few Kenyans who exhibited their food products. According to Valarie Udalang’, a research fellow at the UoN WEE hub, the organization empowers women on value addition among women groups in Tharaka-Nithi, Meru, Kwale, Kilifi, Kitui, Kajiado, Turkana, and Kisumu counties, with a focus on both local and global markets.

“If you have a banana all you can do with it is eat it but now they are making banana crisps, and cassava crisps enabling them to reach a wider market. They can sell them in supermarkets as well as globally as long as they get their KEBs certification,” she tells Nairobi News.

With the value addition, Valarie says that the women groups have a direct link with the consumers, eliminating brokers in the market chain. They are also trained by professionals enabling them to preserve healthier food products through technology. In addition, she says that through value addition more people consume their products, unlike the raw ones.

“More people are more prone to eat banana crisps rather than get them just like the bananas. Like in Meru there is a lot of wastage because people are tired of eating bananas but when they are value added then people eat them more,” she explains.
Mercy Limbua, a food scientist and the founder of the Agroguild consultancy who spoke at the Food Event, says that the majority of Kenyan farmers still lack financial knowledge, making it difficult for them to meet food safety standards compliance. As a result, only a few of them can participate in such exhibitions.

“Food safety and food preservation is an expensive affair. For example, if you go to a stand here you’ll find that they are value-added products and most of our farmers do not have this expertise while those who know cannot afford the expensive equipment,” she says.

On the other hand, she believes that with time, the majority of local farmers will compete in the exhibition market, though this will require support from both government and private leaders and sectors.

“If the produce is not well handled after post-harvest handling it results to going into waste. We get food contamination, aflatoxin contamination, and bacterial infection at the post-harvest level. The best way to mitigate this is to have a post-harvest investment mechanism whereby we are able to control post-harvest losses,” says Limbua.

Meshack Kaburi, programs Executive at Montgomery Group East Africa, organizers of the Kenyan Food, Drink, and Hospitality event, stated that the expo, which creates a platform for exhibitors to sell their goods, also serves as a networking platform for suppliers in the respective sectors, in addition to attracting the majority of international exhibitors and some local exhibitors.

“Even the fact that we have a lot of international exhibitors shows that Kenya is a good target in terms of focussing on the business and potential clients from the Kenyan and East African market,” says Kaburi.
According to Kaburi, the exhibition saw an increase in the number of local exhibitors who participated in its second edition.

“We are keen on having the Kenyan exhibitors on board, and we believe in having this show and showing the results of what it can do in terms of even connecting it to the international market we can pull them to come on board,” he told Nairobi News.