Honey gave me a lifeline – how Matheka maximised unprecedented opportunity
By Milliam.Murigi, October 12, 2023If someone had told Athanas Matheka that he would one day become a successful entrepreneur, he would have dismissed the idea with laughter.
He never imagined himself as a businessman; he was content with his career as a food technologist, where he had earned the admiration of top brands. This passion for his job only grew stronger.
“I started my employment journey at Elianto in 1987 as a shift supervisor in charge of cooking oil extraction and refining. I worked there until 1990 when I secured another job with Unilever,” he starts.
At Unilever, Matheka’s career steadily progressed, starting as a customer service manager responsible for key retail outlets and distribution points nationwide, eventually becoming a field representative.
And as he continued to advance in his career, he decided to open a mini-mart shop for his wife Catherine Mwikali to keep her occupied. What started as a simple endeavour soon revealed an unexpected opportunity.
Opportunity presents itself
In 2000, customers began asking for pure Kenyan honey, a product that was not yet available in their store. At that time, the honey market was dominated by imports. Recognising this demand, Matheka decided to take matters into his own hands. In May of that year, he purchased his first three buckets of raw honey from Kitui for processing.
He says, “I didn’t have the required machinery for honey processing, but I already had honey refining techniques, so I decided to use what was readily available to process the honey. I started the processing in our kitchen using basic tools such as sufurias and hot water.”
Once processed, he packaged the honey into 500ml jars and placed them in the shop, each jar priced at Sh80. Though the product didn’t fly off the shelves as quickly as they had hoped, it eventually sold out. From those initial three buckets, he made a profit of Sh20,800.
This success fired his business urge and he repeated the process. When his honey processing efforts began showing consistent positive results around August of the same year, he made the bold decision to quit his job and fully commit his energies to the honey venture.
“At that pivotal moment, only my wife supported my decision to quit; others questioned why I was leaving a stable job with a young family to support. However, my determination to grow the honey business fuelled by its evident potential, drove me forward,” says Matheka.
By December of that year, he had sold honey worth Sh1.6 million, making a profit of approximately Sh400,000. Sales continued to rise as demand grew, necessitating a move to a larger production space.
Two years later, Matheka and his wife decided to close their struggling mini-mart business and focus entirely on the honey business, giving birth to Greenforest Food Limited.
Venture goes regional
Today, the company that started on Matheka’s kitchen counter stands as a leading producer of natural and nutritious food products in the East African region. The company specialises in five principal product sectors —refined honey, processed peanuts, food-grade beeswax, peanut butter, and processed cashew nuts.
“We diversified our product range in 2010 to help our business stay relevant by aligning it with emerging trends and demands. Introducing new products has opened up opportunities to reach new customer segments and enter new markets. Diversification has also allowed the business to tap into different customer needs and preferences,” he says.
Matheka adds that his venture’s mission is to offer quality, safe, affordable, and nutritious food products to their clients, as well as to increase household income for small-scale farmers and create employment for youth and women.
This is why the company works with over 7,000 small-scale peanut farmers in Kenya and Malawi and over 5,000 beekeepers in Kenya. The company has created employment opportunities for over 90 people across Kenya and the East African region. Among them, 80 per cent are made up of youth, women, and young mothers.
“Despite this impressive growth, Greenforest Food Ltd has also been facing its share of challenges. The most significant is the shortage of raw materials in Kenya. We never thought that one day we would import raw materials, but the shortage of raw materials in Kenya has forced us to somehow rely on imports,” he says.
For example, the company is currently getting most of its groundnuts from Malawi. They are also considering sourcing honey from Tanzania and it’s also quite a challenge to source groundnuts in Kenya with acceptable aflatoxin levels.
Since the company’s goal is to offer healthy, aflatoxin-free products, they do aflatoxin analysis for every batch both in-house and in other outsourced laboratories. They also share certificate of analysis details with their customers in case they require them.
Matheka explains, “We have made significant investments in state-of-the-art machinery to minimise human contact with our products throughout the entire manufacturing process. Our operations are fully automated, ensuring precision and consistency. Additionally, we have established an in-house laboratory dedicated to conducting rigorous safety tests on all our products.”
The tax burden
Another hurdle is the burden of multiple taxes and levies on raw materials by county governments and regulatory bodies. He reveals that multiple taxes have a detrimental impact not only on his business, but also on other small enterprises.
Because of these taxes, small businesses find it difficult to compete with larger corporations that have more resources and sophisticated tax planning strategies. Multiple taxes also put them at a competitive disadvantage since their final product is expensive and uncompetitive in markets.
His company’s product distributions have even expanded into the greater East African Community through distributors serving hotels and through regional restaurant chains.
“We have managed to get to where we are because of partnerships. We have partnered with development partners such as USAid, the European Union, and Slovak Aid. We have also partnered with a Netherlands-based cooperative and social investor Oikocredit, which has escalated the company’s operations,” he says.
Looking ahead, Matheka has ambitious plans to introduce 10 new products, with research already underway. These endeavours will not only increase income opportunities for small-scale farmers, but also create more employment opportunities for the community they serve.