For the longest time, Mohammad Khan’s mother was suffering from heart disease due to a blood clot in one of the vessels supplying blood into the heart.
She had become so weak that the condition threatened her life if a solution was not found immediately.
So, Mr Khan researched on the internet for the best remedy to chronic disease. His research led him to macadamia oil, extolling its cholesterol level health benefit, which is best for fighting heart diseases.
“I came across the health benefits of macadamia oil and nuts among people suffering from heart disease. Thereafter, we began cooking all of our mother’s food with macadamia oil,” he said.
That was 14 years ago.
With that knowledge, Mr Khan has since removed the threat to his mother’s life.
“She is now not taking any medication, she is okay,” the Bangladeshi national said.
He also since set up a macadamia factory. Wish Kenya Limited extracts oil from macadamia nuts.
He invested about Sh10.7 million on five oil pressing machines, filter pressing and bottling equipment.
The Thika-based plant has a production capacity of 16 tonnes per month and has grown from a 15 employee operation to over 100 today.
When the Enterprise visited, employees were busy sorting nuts on steel trays before placing them on various compartments for shipping and oil compression.
“The nuts arrive with shells, we do a little bit of cleaning, drying, separations, oil pressing, filtration and bottling,” Mr Khan said.
They source the nuts from more than 500 smallholder farmers in Embu, Meru and Muranga counties. With t increased demand, plans are also underway to get them from Baringo and Taita Taveta.
“They have some good quality macadamia nuts. With Baringo and Taita Taveta, our recovery will become better,” he explained.
Testing the market
The venture has also seen farmers make good earning. Last year they earned between Sh240 to Sh80 per kilogramme for their nuts.
Their macadamia oil costs Sh836 (750 ml) to Sh348 (250 ml).
Mr Khans said they were exploring the Bangladesh market. Recently, they shipped 10,000 bottles of macadamia oil to Bangladesh to test the market.
Locally, they have begun stocking the products at various supermarkets such as Naivas, Carrefour, Qickmart, FoodPlus, Shell and Rubis.
But, he says that his focus is to market the Kenyan brand globally and not through the sale of nut or oils to third parties.
“For example, there is a company in Switzerland that buys the raw products from Kenya, they grind it and package it using their name and then put it in the supermarket. So, the Kenyan brand does not get recognition,” he said.
“My wish is to establish the Kenyan brand to reach the market directly,” he added.
One of the biggest challenges in macadamia production, he said, is that it is labour intensive hence high costs.
“We need some new people to get them to our standard such as training procedures, which take sometimes,”
Additionally, macadamia oil is stored in specialised dark bottles to prevent sunlight reactions.
“Macadamia oil is always light and heat sensitive and hence we cannot put it in plastic bottles because there will be polymer migration. These glass bottles are not manufactured in Kenya and we have to ship them in from China.”
Similarly, like most businesses, Wish Kenya has also seen its supply chain disrupted the Covid-19 pandemic.
“If the demand increases further then getting supply regular bottles will be challenging,” he says.
Mr Khan moved to Kenya came eleven years ago at the prompt of a Kenyan friend he met while working in Zimbabwe and Botswana.
“I had no intention of coming to do business here as I wanted to come and see how things are done,” he said.
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