A little over a year after it was handed over to the Ministry of Defence from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Kenya Meat Commission has managed to turn a profit after turning around the run-down meat processing facility with the management crediting this to efficiency and transparency in how they conduct business.

Before the military took over KMC, the facility handled an average of between 8-10 heads of cattle daily compared to over 300 heads of cattle being processed daily.

The turnaround of the Kenya Meat Commission has taken a lot less time than had earlier been anticipated with the meat processor turning a profit less than one year after operations were handed over to the military to run it.

According to Brigadier James N Githaga, the managing commissioner at KMC, they achieved this by streamlining the operations and ensuring that they pay suppliers on time.

“What we have done is to ensure that the operations at the factory are efficiently run, and to keep this plant running we ensure that we pay suppliers in under 72 hours…,” says Brigadier James N Githaga.

This has ensured that KMC turned a profit of almost Ksh.150 million in the first 3 quarters of the year compared to Ksh.5 million from when they took over. 

“Currently we are doing sales of more than Ksh.300 million and in terms of procurement, initially we had a supplier base of 20 farmers but we have since increased that to over 1,200,” he adds.

Joyce Gichuru, the Chief grader at KMC adds: “The machines were initially run down and that hindered how we were doing our work but now we are able to do 300 cattle during the day and another 300 at night if the demand is high.”

Another area where Brigadier Githaga says they are making money is the value-added products like corned beef and the discarded materials including undated meats, blood and fats that they use in making animal feeds.

“When we took over all the machines that operated along the processing lines were broken but now we have them up and running and we are currently doing over 42,000 cans of corned beef that is supplied to the disciplined forces in the country which they were importing,” he says.

The next step for KMC, Brigadier Githaga says, will be to seek ISO certification which will allow them to export meat products outside the country and expand by franchising meat retail shops in different parts of the country to get their products closer to the market.