Margaret Komen is the director and founder of Mace Foods, a large scale producer of spices, vegetables, herbs and some collateral products for export.
Situated in Eldoret, Mace Foods processes the vegetables and spices to international markets in Europe.
Interestingly, Maggie was not in agriculture initially as she studied food technology in university.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
Background
In an interview with Agri Innovation Hub, Magie explained that upon graduating from university, she was employed and worked in a lab.
However, she noted that she is not a routine person and as such, doing the same tasks everyday turned out to be boring for her.
Maggie quit her job and attended a trade fair in Germany where she identified an opportunity to venture into agri-business.
She also explained that a section of her family members did not approve her decision to grow and sell chillies due to its value.
“I saw an opportunity in chillies and I came and started. I remember when I started the business, my family members thought something was wrong with me because who would start selling chillies
“My aunties tried to convince me to abandon the project and go back to employment or get into another business,” she said.
Despite the opposition from her family, Maggie went ahead and started Mace Foods which has been in existence for 20 years.
“I have grown and become a different person from who I was 19 years ago… If I could turn back the clock, there are some things that I could have done differently,” she said.
Maggie noted that she wishes that over the years, she could invest in people by allowing them to learn through her entrepreneurial journey.
“As my business grew, I never invested in people. What you’re doing is yours and you’re the person who has it. Its not easy for another person to take it away from you
“If you’re in the value addition space, it’s your innovation that will make you thrive. There’s so much opportunity, you just have to pick and specialize,” she explained.
While venturing into the business, Maggie experienced a tough start as most key things in the business was centralized in Nairobi.
“It was very difficult if you’re based in Eldoret for example; even packaging, getting people to design things and formulate products was really tough,” she stated.
As a budding agriprenuer, she also experienced difficulties in getting the right technical skills needed in running the business.
As such, she is urging college students to be deliberate on the course that they choose to pursue.
“Don’t just jump into a course because that is what your parent want, consider technical colleges. In manufacturing we lack machine operators, food technologists among other experts
“This way, you end up spending a lot of time training people who did other things to be able to do what you’re doing,” she lamented.
Maggie also faced challenges with raising money to grow her business as many financial institutions termed agri-business a risky venture.
“For the longest time it was family money, my own money and angel investors. It was only until 2021 when I got an investor who put a good amount of money into my business,” she said.
At Mace Foods, Maggie has two processing lines; the chilly line which has 12 products and the vegetables line where they do African leafy vegetables.
“We were targeting the diaspora but we’ve realized that there is market even in the big cities. We have five products in this line,” she explained.
Maggie disclosed that exports make 70 percent of her business for both vegetables and chillies.
“For chillies, we export to pharmaceutical industries to South Korea, Spain and to the food in Italy and Germany
“For the vegetables, we export to the US, to serve Kenyans living there. We work with a big distributor in the US and we’re looking for a distributor in the UK and Middle East,” she explained.
Locally, the products are available at Naivas and Chandarana.
