NAROK COUNTY DAIRY FACTORY

reducing milk spoilage and wastage through value addition into yoghurt and ice cream using innovative low cost machinery made from scrap metal, they are powered by farm waste.

This project was initiated by university students who conducted a feasibility study and discovered that the smallholder milk producers lose up to 40% of their milk due to spoilage because of an unreliable market and also overexploitation from milk middle men who purchase the milk from the desperate farmers at ksh 18 whereas the price of milk at the farm gate is 38ksh a litre, we saw a business opportunity and innovated machinery made from recycled metal with the capability of processing milk into yoghurt using farm waste as fuel, currently we process 250 litres milk into yoghurt daily, we focus on individual household consumption, schools and retailers in Narok who love our product because of its affordability, and the free delivery services, the project's ability to increase quantities will allow it to service the needs of big consumers as well. 

small holder farmers in Narok county produce approximately 500,000 litres milk daily, there are approximately 50,000 farmers who  don't have a constant market for their produce, less than half the milk produced daily has a constant market, our project discovered that the farmers needed a constant milk market in order for them to gain profit from their only livelihood, the main contributors to the problem are:- 

i) poor road network

ii) overexploitation from milk middle men.

iii) Lack of local milk processing facilities

Due to these challenges the farmers lose up to 40% of their produce since milk is a very perishable produce.

our project purchase milk from smallholder farmers and process the milk into yoghurt and other milk products, we also give emergency loans to the farmers and deduct the money from their proceeds after selling the milk to us.

we conducted a feasibility study and collected data from the farmers.the project holds meetings with the farmers at its conference hall and understands farmer's challenges and solves them though innovative methods, some of the challenges already solved include:- improved animal productivity through feed formulation trainings and seed bulking.
  lowering milk loses by 30% by value addition and increasing farmer's income.
  Trainings on animal husbandry technology and breed improvement. Currently we directly impact the lives of 1000 farmers and we target to reach 20,000 farmers.

our project is a Business to consumer type of business that excludes middle men and channels the extra profit to the shareholders and smallholder farmers, we process 250 litres milk daily, the cost of production is 0.5 $ per litre and we sell at 1.8$ a litre making a profit of 1.2$ a litre, we have attracted about 15000 customers and 2000 customers purchase our products daily hence need to upscale our production, we are limited by the capacity of our machineries and equipment,  we need to expand our daily production capacity to 1000 litres due to the availability or raw milk, we need $ 15000 to upscale, once we get the funds we will be making 1000$ profit daily, at that point we will be able to supply shops and supermarkets with our products and sustain the supply, investment to our project will earn an investor up to 15% profit.

we currently reach 1000 farmers and plan to reach 20,000 in the near future