Dairy farmers in Nyamira county are set for a windfall after Highland Creamers and Food Ltd (HCFL) begun active operations in Simbauti in Borabu sub-county.
The company’s initial operations will focus on dairy processing and packaging. The plant has the capacity to process a minimum of 200,000 litres of milk per day. Currently the firm is processing Fresh milk and Long life ESL milk for the market. In June 2017 HCFL launched high value dairy product such as cream, yoghurt, Fermented milk, Butter and Cheese by the end of 2017.
Production has been commissioned and the first batch of long life ESL milk has already hit the market to be sold countrywide.
“We have ventured into dairy processing at a crucial time where there is scarcity of milk, increased milk prices and unreliability and health concerns on dairy output. This is a very exciting project in partnership with local farmers that will allow us to provide quality dairy products not only in Kenya but East and Central Africa within the next five years,” said Highland Creamers and Food Ltd chairman Nelson J. Bichanga.
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With a state of the art milk processing technology, the factory in using cutting edge expertise in the dairy sector has come at the right time to address the dairy demands in the country.
“This is the only milk processing factory located in this region and we envisage that it will go a long way to help local farmers market there milk formally. Currently most farmers in the region are involved in informal milk marketing (hawking) which is illegal and also provides unsafe milk to consumers.
Now that the factory is established and functional we encourage local farmers to form dairy co-operative societies and milk bulking groups so that they can channel their produce in the formal market and embrace a saving culture through the factory,” said Mr David Akungu, Kenya Dairy Board’s Kisii branch manager.
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