This archive report was first published on 7 August 2020.
Rebecca Munga, a 44-year-old Diani resident, has found a way to turn her life around after losing her job due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She has turned to cashew nut value addition, a business that has brought her good profits with minimal stress.
With a certificate in front office operations from Utalii College, Munga started her enterprise in 2019, buying 10 kilos of cashew nuts at Sh600 each from a women's group. She branded her product Chikwehu cashew nuts and hit the ground running, roasting and selling them.
However, her business faced headwinds as customers complained about the poor quality of the nuts. It took her two months to sell the first stock, and she had to discontinue the source of the raw nuts. But she persevered and found a new source, increasing her sales from 10 to 50 kilos a month.
When the pandemic struck, Munga's hotel industry clients closed, affecting her business environment. But she chose to push her nuts business, using the time to focus on her enterprise. She now sorts, washes, and salts the nuts, adds olive oil to make them shiny, and prepares two products: unroasted and roasted nuts.
For the roasted nuts, she heats the extracted kernels at 180 degrees Celsius in an air fryer for three minutes, until they turn golden brown. She then cools, weighs, and packages them based on orders. She sells the unroasted cashew nuts at Sh150 per 100g and a kilo at Sh1,300, while the roasted nuts go for Sh175 for the 100g pack and Sh1,750 for a kilo.
Rebecca says that from a pack of 10 kilos of raw nuts, she makes a profit of Sh2,000. She uses social media sites – WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram – to reach a wider market and relies on referrals. Her strategy is to go for the retail market by packaging in smaller 25g and 50g packs that can be accessed by many people.
She has applied for her products to be certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards so that she can sell in formal markets. Dr John Kinyuru, a food and nutrition scientist from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, notes that there is good money in value addition, which extends the shelf-life of a product.
