By Clifford Akumu
Kulamawe Poultry, that operates a chicken processing plant in Northern Kenya, scooped one of the five Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Pitch Competition awards at the inaugural Nutrition Africa Investor Forum held in Nairobi.
Kulamawe won the 2018 SUN Pitch Competition Growth Africa Award category for
“making available chicken products to the lower end of the market by pre-packaging as little as 100grams to a full capon”.
SUN Pitch Competition awards recognize entrepreneurs addressing malnutrition in all its
forms by improving access to nutritious foods along the agri-food value chain.
The competition also aims to establish the commercial viability of nutrition-sensitive
businesses, highlight innovation and position entrepreneurs for growth and scale.
“We settled on chicken value addition which is a very important component of nutrition,”
said Denis Marangu, the CEO of Kulamawe Poultry Industries after receiving the award.
“As an entrepreneur, this award means a lot to me. It proves there is confidence in what we have been working on signaling a bright future in our poultry business.”
The inception of the poultry industry, said Marangu, was motivated by the ‘failure of quail
farming fad that had hit the Kenyan market back in 2012’.
He noted his main aim was to improve farmers’ livelihoods by providing a ready market for their birds and change ‘the quail rearing bug’ perception in Northern Kenya.
Marangu launched his poultry processing plant in 2014 when quail farming excitement died as quickly as it started, making prices dip.
Growth Africa Award is a six-month incubator program worth USD 25,000 that includes
business and strategy development support empowering entrepreneurs to leverage
investment.
Marangu said he gets his poultry from 50 small-scale farmers adding that he is not
currently able to meet the demand. The company slaughters between 500-1000 birds a day.
Fokko Wientjes, Vice-President of Nutrition in Emerging Markets, Royal DSM who was
among the judging panel said SME’s are critical in shaping the nutritional outcomes of the local food system.
While congratulating the winners in different categories, Wientjes said, “It was extremely
difficult to choose winners from the 21 excellent start-ups. Everybody is a winner. Make it
happen, and do not take a no for an answer,”
The awards had over 450 entries across Africa with only 21 entrepreneurs selected to
compete for the final five categories. Other awards were SUN Business Networks(SBN)
Nutrition Champion Award, Graca Machel Trust Award, Bop Inc Award, DSM Nutrition and
Innovation Award.
