The Company was incorporated on 15th of July, 1965 as a private limited Company with the original shareholders being Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC), German Development Bank, Grindlays Development Finance Corporation of Kenya and Gutehoffnungshuttle (ghh) and Vivo Kenya (formerly Kenya Shell Ltd). Original shareholding was Kshs.30,000,000.00 with the Government of Kenya (GoK) shareholding at 43.33%.
In 1974, the Company became a parastatal when the Government’s shareholding went up to 95.39% through an aid package by the German Government. The authorized capital of the Company stood at Kshs. 173,215,620.00.
At inception, the Company had a milling capacity of 85 Tonnes of Cane per Hour (TCH). In 1968, the amount of cane ground and sugar bagged was 116,516 and 10,826 tonnes, respectively, at a Tonnes Cane and Tonnes Sugar (TC/TS) of 10.76.
The factory’s production performance continued to improve and to exemplify this as at 30th June, 2012, the total cane milled and sugar produced since inception was 23,885,866 tonnes and 2,131,825 tonnes, respectively, at an average TC/TS ratio of 11.20.
Earlier in 1991, the Company achieved its best performance at 822,349 tonnes of cane and 82,905 tonnes of sugar at a TC/TS ratio of 9.92.
The Company’s milling capacity now stands at 135TCH. When fully operational, it is capable of milling up to 900,000 tonnes of cane a year. The factory draws cane for milling from outgrower farmers in Muhoroni, Nyando, Tinderet, Nandi South and Nandi East sub-counties, with about 85% of the cane supplied by Outgrower farms and 15% obtained from the Company’s Nucleus Estate.
As the Company grew and ownership changed, so did its management. At inception, the agricultural operations were managed by Agrar Und Hydrotechnic of Essen, Germany, while the factory and administration departments were managed by American Factor Associates of Hawaii, who became the overall managing agents in 1966. In 1969, Bookers Agricultural and Technical Services (BATS) became the managing agents. In 1985, Kenyan Africanized management took over and this has remained so to-date.
