Long road to supermarket shelves

I have narrated before my struggles when trying to get market for my poultry products without going through unscrupulous middlemen.

As many upcoming farmers, I had relied on direct marketing by word of mouth because channels for poultry products are not clearly defined.

Over time, however, I have found direct marketing equally unreliable and sometimes disappointing.

A month ago, I decided enough was enough and approached a few leading supermarkets in Nairobi to explore the possibility of finally having my products on their “shelves”.

I confidently marched into the office of one of the marketing manager of the supermarket.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I was referred to you by your Westlands’ branch manager. I rear Kienyeji chicken and would like to supply your supermarket,” I explained.

I had left nothing to chance. I was donning a white shirt, red tie, black trouser and matching shoes. I had also bought a copy of Business Daily to add to the ‘swag’ of a discerning businessman.

Cleopas, my farm manager, who had accompanied me, was also sharply dressed.

“So what products do you have?” the manager asked.

“Chicken meat and eggs,” I replied.

Documents any supplier needs to succeed in the business

“What’s the name of your company?” he asked. I must admit that question caught me off-guard. “Company, what has a company got to do with eggs and chicken meat? Does he know that I write a weekly poultry column for a national newspaper?” I wondered.

He explained to me that as a supplier, I needed to have the following documents: a company registration certificate, a PIN certificate from Kenya Revenue Authority, a food handler’s certificate and a Kenya Bureau of Standards mark.

I must admit that after this encounter, I realised that to succeed in this business, I needed to operate slightly above mama mboga (vegetables vendor). After the meeting, I engaged the services of a lawyer to start the process of registering a company.

The first thing was to come up with a catchy name for the company. But when I called Dr Oyugi, a friend and a regular customer for advice, he asked me a simple question, “What products are you dealing in?”

“Kienyeji eggs and meat,” I replied. After a pause, he responded, “If I were you, I would call the company Kienyeji Kenya Ltd,” he said. I thought that was brilliant and quickly settled for the name.

Now, there was a second step where a name search is undertaken at the Attorney General’s office to ensure somebody else has not registered a company with a similar title. The same afternoon following the search, I got a response that the name had been reserved for me.

Process of registering a company

The lawyer I had engaged explained that the entire process of registering the company would take about five working days. However, it took two weeks and I paid him Sh20,000 for the work. I am told some lawyers charge as much as Sh50,000.

Over two weeks ago, I submitted a company certificate, PIN and a copy of my national ID to the Kenya Bureau of Standards and paid the required fee of Sh11,500 for certification.

I was told to wait for between two weeks and two months for their officer to come to my farm and take some “samples” for testing. I am still waiting to date.

All I can say is that the government needs to do more in terms of ease of doing business, including company registration, property and access to credit and electricity connections.

Kenya Country Economic Memorandum

I have a pending bill of Sh70,000 to connect electricity to my farm in Njiru though I am barely 10 metres away from the main grid. I wonder what happened to the proclamation that consumers in urban areas would not pay more than Sh35,000.

Although according to the World Bank’s 2016 Kenya Country Economic Memorandum, the nation improved an impressive 21 places on ease of doing business, from 129 to 108, more needs to be done if agriculture is to be a viable option for creating jobs and alleviating rural poverty.

Meanwhile, as I wait for the standards officers to visit my farm, I have been researching on other poultry products available in the market. My idea is that when my products finally hit the supermarket shelves, consumers would have no problem choosing them over my competition.

However, my idea is not just to get customers to select my products over my competition, I also want them to be repeat customers.

I am now looking at the various ways of packaging eggs and chicken meat. I have also instructed my designer to start working on a logo and a slogan.

The story I can’t wait to tell is what will happen when I go back to the supermarket with all the paperwork and my poultry products packed ready to get on the shelves.