Duo reaps big from market gap in traditional vegetables

**Some of the produce sold at Andy’s Greens shop owned by Andrew Wekunda and colleague Steve Wekola located in Township Ward, Kanduyi Sub County in Bungoma County.** [Nanjinia Wamuswa, Standard]

Andrew Wekunda started Andy’s Greens to assist smallholder farmers in selling their produce.

Previously, he had worked for several agricultural organisations whose main focus was training and assisting farmers with access to inputs but not creating markets for them.

“There was a big gap in smallholder farmers accessing markets as many organisations majored in skills intervention and provision of inputs. I resolved to try to create markets,” he begins.

Three years down the line, Wekunda has succeeded in creating a market for 700 farmers out of which 520 supply their produce directly to him.

Andy’s Greens located in Township Ward, Bungoma County aggregates produce from smallholder farmers, including African leafy vegetables, tomatoes, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and fruits such as oranges and watermelons. It also stocks chicken and meat.

For quality produce, Wekunda and his team of 11 train smallholder farmers on agronomic-based practices, mostly indigenous vegetables after which they buy from them and also help them seek other markets. He occasionally works with 10 casuals on a need basis.

There are small aggregation centres located in the villages where 10-15 farmers bring their produce after harvesting. They pick up the produce every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Wekunda reveals their main buyers are restaurants and vegetable vendors who purchase in bulk. The vendors are enrolled on a programme where Wekunda and his team follow up on their progress.

They update market prices on their website every Monday.

But is there a market for the produce? Wekunda explains: “Yes, we wouldn’t be doing this if there isn’t a market. We cannot satisfy it. Right now we cannot meet the market demand for potatoes. We’re forced to source from Nyandarua, while we source onions from Uganda and Tanzania.”

He says in a good month, they make up to Sh800,000.

After seeing the market gap, Wekunda resigned from One Acre Fund where he worked as a director of innovations, in 2019. He partnered with a former colleague, Steve Wekola, in planting indigenous vegetables such as managu (African nightshade) and cowpeas.

They posted the produce on their social media pages and buyers started inquiring where to get them.

They established a makeshift stall at a cost of Sh1,000 from where they initially operated.

As their customer base grew, Wekunda and his partner recruited more farmers for consistent supply. After four months, they left the stall for a modern market stall.

Later, they leased a bigger shop and renovated it at Sh 320,000. But because of a lack of proper storage, most of the produce would go to waste.

With time, they put up a cold room at a cost of Sh2.5 million, which enabled them to keep produce for longer before finding the market for it.

“The cold room helps keep the produce, which does not get to the market immediately, fresh,” says Wekunda

He has been riding on the Agriculture Sector Development Support Programme Phase Two (ASDSP II), one of the key programmes designed by the Ministry of Agriculture and the county governments to address food security and promote manufacturing.

It is primarily designed to enhance the capacity of different priority value chain actors at different levels to tackle the problems that hinder the commercialisation of agriculture.

Through ASDSP, he says they got over 20 tomato farmers.

Initially, they depended on less than five for their supply. As their engagement continued, ASDSP gave them a tricycle, which helped ease the transportation of produce from the farms.

“We use the tricycle to collect and deliver produce to our clients. It’s cheaper than using motorbikes,” he says.

Initially, they used motorbikes to deliver produce to 30 vendors at Sh100 each, totaling Sh3,000. But at only Sh700, they are now able to serve all 30 vegetable vendors using the tricycle, which includes the Sh300 daily pay for the rider.

Their clients are mostly walk-ins, while others order over the phone or on the website. Despite the success of the enterprise, Wekunda cites access to finance as one of the biggest hindrances to their expansion plan for the business.