Interview with Margaret Munene, Managing Director of Palmhouse Dairies Ltd

What is your assessment of the sector in Kenya? What are the latest trends? You were previously a niche player, but who are you catering to now?

We are still addressing the high-end market but what has changed is we have really increased our value addition. Now, we are making a lot of drinking yogurt, partly for the high-end market, but most of it is for the normal market. We are selling to shops, kiosks, and a few supermarkets.

Who are your clients? Are they looking now more to the quality of the product? How are the consumers behaving now?

We have added a number of new clients to our client list. Our customers are really looking for quality and that is always our greatest selling point. Many of our customers are referred to us from our older customers who we have been with for a long time and who know that Palmhouse Dairies milk is of very good quality. Our service is very good in that we are not a very big company so we are very versatile in addressing the needs of our clients. For example, if a hotel like Serena runs out of milk, it is possible for them to call us and we can actually do a second delivery, which for a big company would be impossible.

How many clients do you have? Have you been growing?

Our figures have grown. Our customers in the high-end market have grown but we now have many customers also in the normal market because of yogurt. We do roughly 1,000 liters of yogurt per day. Kenyans love yogurt when it is hot, so especially in the hot, dry months, we are able to sell up to 1,200 liters of yogurt per day.

What makes your product different?

Kenyans are also becoming very aware in terms of good health. They are looking for organic products. The fact that our milk and our yogurt is all natural with no additives added, we find that people want to use our products.

Our main difference is our quality. We do not use any preservatives in our yogurt. Sometimes, our white milk will come in in the morning and by evening it is pasteurized and already with the customer. Our products are natural and organic. We receive our milk from roughly 500 farmers. Of the 500 farmers, 85% of them are women. Because they are small scale farmers, they will not do funny things with the milk. Our farmers have an average of three cows each. Therefore, the milk is very organic. They feed the cows Napier grass and dairy meal. It comes to our door maybe two hours after the cow has been milked and immediately, we pasteurize it, package it, and send it off to the customer. We do not have to do anything to increase the shelf life. Our slogan is “experience the natural”.

Do you see a need growing for natural, organic products here?

Kenyans are also becoming very aware in terms of good health. They are looking for organic products. The fact that our milk and our yogurt is all natural with no additives added, we find that people want to use our products.

Are you interested in attracting investors?

We have just started talking to an investor. We are in the very early stages so we do not know where this will go, but we are definitely interested. We are thinking of an investor who would come and buy some of the shares of the company. We would sell a majority of the shares to the investor, keep some of the shares, and hand over management of the company to the investor. My husband and I are getting older. We have run the company for close to 25 years. In two to four years, we would like to take a back seat and let someone else run the business.

In terms of technology, are you interested in attracting partners?

We have not thought of that, but we are ready to listen to anyone who would be interested.

Do you have any success stories?

We have many success stories because we have a number of companies in the hospitality and medical sectors that have been with us for almost as long as we have been in business. Nairobi Hospital, which is one of the biggest hospitals in Kenya, we have been with for years. To be supplying to a company like Nairobi Hospital for 15 or 20 years is a success story and definitely shows we have something good going for us. We have also supplied Serena Hotel, one of the five-star hotels in Nairobi, for more than 15 years. We have supplied the Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club for almost 15 to 20 years. We pride ourselves in having long term clients. Usually, customers do not stay that long with you unless you are meeting their needs.

What would you like to achieve for the company before you hand it over to someone else?

We will most likely continue to work on it even if we get an investor, but we would want to increase our value addition and sell more value-added products and not white milk. We are already doing a lot of drinking yogurt and we have already started eating yogurt and we would want to increase the share of eating yogurt which we can sell to corporate customers and hotels.

FAIR USE POLICY
This material (including media content) may not be published, broadcasted, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the page (including the source, i.e. Marcopolis.net) is permitted and encouraged.