Patrick Wambani is the proprietor of Sashishi Animal Feeds firm, the only animal feed production plant in Kakamega County.
At the production plant, the entrepreneur mills a variety of ingredients that is used to make livestock feeds.
Wambani set up the firm some seven years ago with Ksh 3 million as the starting capital.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
Wambani established his business in 2016, three years after retiring from Sony Sugar Company where he worked as a superintendent manager.
He pumped Ksh 3 million into the business, which he used to purchase raw materials, processing machines and manpower.
In an interview with Nation, Wambani noted that he set up the business having worked in production for many years.
He also noted that devolution of agricultural activities as the motivation behind establishment of his business.
“The county government was promoting agribusiness in particular livestock keeping by giving residents cattle and chickens. They provided a market for feeds,” he said.
Wambani bought among other machines a crusher, mixer, weighing scale, stitching equipment and those for packaging.
The raw materials included maize bran, wheat pollard, wheat bran, cottonseed cake, sunflower cake and soya seed cake.
He produces 80 bags of various livestock feeds per week although they also increase their production capacity if demand grows.
Wambani packages livestock feeds in 70kg, 50kg and 10kg bags and sells between Ksh 250 and Ksh 3,100.
“But we increased our prices recently by 2 percent to cater for high production costs after ingredients prices and transportation challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
He sells his produce to individual farmers and the County Government of Kakamega where he has a tender to supply feeds to its smart farms.
“I also supply feeds to dairy corporative societies in Ikolomani, Khwisero and Malava and local agrovet shops,” he said.
Wambani faces among other challenges the high cost of licenses.
“Getting the certification from KEBS was one of the biggest challenges as it involved a lot of back and forth,” he explained.
Wambani has six employees and two others who work as marketing and sales executives. He also hires casual staff in need basis.
