In many parts of Kenya, KCC and KMC are the two avenues (the only two in some areas) that the local population can earn any regular and guaranteed coins. The on-going efforts to resuscitate the two is thus strategic and a boon to local economies .
KCC was established in 1925 to provide a market for Lord Delamere and the like of their produce. Over time, KCC grew to become a monopoly whose reach extended beyond providing milk to the urban population to social engineering in form of UHT milk to entice kids from arid areas to go to school.
In semi arid and arid areas especially, KCC's role in general development cannot be underplayed. In Endarasha, Kieni (tends to be dry due to being on the leeward side of Mt Kenya) for example, apart from providing them with regular monthly income, dairy farmers grouped themselves into a cooperative which among other things came up with a water project that brought piped water from the Aberdare Ranges to each household, a tractor for smoothening the local murram roads and so forth.
Either by design or sheer incompetence, the former regime managed to rundown KCC and then lo and behold privatised it with most of the shares going to Moi (via lawyer Kenneth Kiplagat). Other companies (prominently Uhuru Kenyatta's Brookside Dairy) stepped in to fill the void.
Since 2003, the now renamed New KCC has arisen and is now picking up in market share on both supplyside and sellside. With an experienced business head of Matu Wamae and the youthful energy and marketing experience of 37 year-old Francis Mwangi ,New KCC has moved to recapture lost market share, re-consolidate milk supply and is now moving regionally and even to Middle East with recent orders from Yemen.
Its rejuvenation has been a boon for local economies such as Endarasha,where farmers had moved onto the more volatile horticulture farmers.With good prices and guaranteed payments farmers, are now in the midst of an electrification programme. They also recently announced plans to join 5other cooperatives and start a processing plant for the whole of Kieni.
New KCC intends to list in 2009.
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