Eikon Kenya is a business whose objectiveEikon Kenya is a business whose objectiveis to develop products and servicesthat are of great quality and relativelyaffordable to many people. Being a studentat Egerton University under the CEESAM scholarship, the founders have worked onprojects involving product development(jams and marmalades containing gumarabic). CEESAM has also facilitated themattending conferences and exhibitionswhere they gained extensive inspiration.The students have been experimentingwith the development of many otherproducts in the agricultural value chains.They make jams and marmalades fromvarious fruits. Their project at Egertonuniversity deals with red plums andpineapples for jam, oranges, and lemonsfor marmalades.

Over time, they have diversified theproduct range and produced pawpaw,mango, baobab, black plum jam, andcitrus blend marmalade. Other productsinclude potato and banana crisps, chevy,and yoghurt. They also offer consultancyon value addition on various products inthe agricultural value chain.

Business growth and prospects

Business growth and prospectsIn the beginning, the students experimentedwith many products; rabbit sausages,canned Irish and sweet potatoes, eastAfrican doughnuts(mahamri), secane seedbites, and content peas. Later they startedstreamlining the business to focus onfewer products to understand the marketdynamics better. They started with about10kgs of potatoes per week, and over fourmonths, they increased their raw materialdemand to 100kgs and even employedone person. The growth has been slow butsteady because there’s a lot of learningand adjusting along the way. They plan tominimize some activities like packagingand thus reduce production and time costs.They also hope to contract farmers forreliable supply throughout the year.

Challenges

The customers of the business are mainlythe youth, and therefore they target schools.With the closure of physical learning, thebusiness suffered a great blow and theyhad to reduce production.However, theyare expanding and exploring differentmarketing strategies because they believethe customers are still there, only scatteredin various estates.Because of the stiffcompetition in the snack industry frombig establishments to small upcomingenterprises; the students have to maintainthe quality and still have competitive pricesto make reasonable profits.

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