• A notice to the farmers from the Ruiru-based company associated with the Kenyatta family says the losses have become unsustainable.
• The closure means that 150 employees will be rendered jobless and 10,000 smallholders will have no market for their milk.
Brookside Dairies will exit Taita Taveta County on March 1, citing losses at its Wumingu Cooling Plant.
The closure of the plant means that its 150 employees will be rendered jobless.
The Ruiru-based company, associated with the Kenyatta family, said its 10,000-litre daily capacity cooling plant at Wundanyi town has been underperforming.
The closure will be a setback for dairy farmers as the company has been buying over 45 per cent of the entire raw milk in the county.
In 2017, Brookside paid Taita Taveta dairy farmers a total of Sh52 million for the raw milk.
In a notice to the farmers, the company said the losses have become unsustainable. The dairy farmers will have to find another buyer for the produce.
Farmer Granton Mwashigadi regretted Brookside's exit. “It is a very big setback. We do not know what to do with our huge volumes of milk.”
Granton, who has been supplying the decade-old plant with over 1,000 litres daily, asked the government to intervene.
More than 10,000 smallholders are engaged in milk production in the county.
Data at the county livestock department shows that the devolved unit has an annual milk production capacity of 19 million litres.
Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries executive Davis Mwangoma blamed middlemen and brokers for the state of affairs.
“Brokers have drastically reduced the amount of milk supplied to the plant. The department has been urging farmers to supply milk to Brookside cooling plant. Some have not heeded our advice,” Mwangoma said.
He said the farmers are lured by handsome but unsustainable offers from brokers who supply the commodity to the local market.
The official said his department is collaborating with the national government and other partners to put up several milk cooling plants for better storage.
They are also trying to convince Brookside to reverse the decision.
Numerous companies in the country have either shut down or downsized due to the deteriorating economic situation blamed on the Jubilee government's "unfriendly business policies".
In 2019, the Registrar of Companies indicated that 388 companies had been dissolved between March and August.
The situation is expected to get worse this year, according to Central Bank Governor Patrick Njoroge.