Nancy Nyambura is the founder of Animal World Feeds, an agribusiness company dealing in distribution of animal feeds.
In an interview, she mentioned that she established her business in 2002 while living in Donholm area.
As a small scale farmer, Nyambura noted that she heavily relied on dairy feeds in a bid to sustain her farming venture in an urban setting.
“My challenge was travelling all the way to Industrial Area to buy dairy feeds.I would walk all the way which is a distance of 4 kilometres. After buying my dairy feeds, I would hire someone to carry them to my place using a bicycle,” she shared.
These struggles were a wake up call for Nyambura who thought, just like her, how many farmers are grappling with the inadequate supply of feeds.
It is then when she decided to venture into business by setting up an animal feeds shop in Kayole within Eastlands area.
“My struggle turned into my eureka moment. It was clear that there was a market gap for dairy feeds in Nairobi that was not receiving adequate supply. I would source for my stock in wholesale from Unga Feeds Limited in Industrial Area,” she shared.
Nyambura mentioned that after a while, Unga Feeds Limited got curious about her model of business, and wanted to know how she operated her business.
After a while, Unga Feeds Limited visited Nyambura’s shop in Kayole to which she convinced the company thay she can be their distributor in the larger Eastlands area.
Unga Feeds Limited agreed to work with Nyambura but she needed to have three trucks and a guarantee of Ksh 1 million.
As a result, she approached a local bank and shared her proposal to which the bank agreed to help her meet the requirements.
“They told me they would extend financing to my business and true to their word, a financing package was processed within a week and I started my new phase of business as a distributor,” she shared.
By 2019, when the COVID-19 pandic struck, disrupting businesses, Nyambura’s animal feeds shop was reaching high levels.
“Every other business closed down in 2019 as the pandemic spread. People retreated to their homes and there was a huge demand for chickens. The trickle effect was a high demand for chicken feeds,” she shared.