Silafrica Kenya: The Industry Leader Redefining Packaging in the East African Region

Maurice Oyuyo, CFO at Silafrica, explains how the packaging manufacturer has become the industry leader in Kenya and East Africa, and is redefining the packaging space in the region.

“For me, Silafrica means dominance in the packaging space. It is a company that wants to find solutions that tailor towards packaging, improving the usage of plastics and being able to offer solutions to other business-to-business customers. When I walk around, I see a lot of innovations, a lot of thought in terms of what they are providing, and a lot of solutions in terms of what is impacting businesses here in Kenya. Just by being there and interacting with businesses, that is what I am looking at. How I can be part of that core that is redefining the packaging space. When you look at the foldable crates, that is an ingenious idea that for the time being nobody will be able to replicate, or even be able to measure up to because it solves a specific problem. That is why I look at the business today. From my point of view from a few months of interaction, I see the business as one that has a good footprint across East Africa and a business that is willing to advance its technology and be able to offer solutions that are superior to the local competition. I do not see the business as one that looks into what the other competitors are doing, and want to do, but one that wants to take leadership in the space that they are playing in, be able to create value, be ahead of the pack in terms of competitiveness and to continue innovations. Then we can give customers exactly what they are looking for and that way we can stay ahead of the competitive pack”, says Maurice Oyuyo.

“In the rigid plastics space, we provide crates. Whenever you see a Coca Cola crate, the first thing I look at is who is the manufacturer and where it comes from. You look at the quality of those crates. As a business we did not know where they came from or who made them, so to be able to see the core of these products in the manufacturing process actually gives me a lot of pride to know that Silafrica has been at the forefront for a long time now as a business. The thing that I love the most is the foldable crates. I had heard about it, but I had not been in the business. You look at exporters of avocados, they spend a huge amount of money on disposable cartons. When you look at the back end of it, you need a lot of trees to manufacture those cartons and forests are not one of the big things in Kenya, or probably East Africa, so we need to be able to find solutions that not only protect the environment, can be used for some time and are actually durable. It is just the realization of how far the business has come and the level of innovation and technology that is being put into play here. I do not think that is something that you can easily copy or match up with but you have to think harder to be able to play in that space”, he adds.

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