Green’ jiko Cooks-well

By DAVID ODONGO

Teddy Kinyanjui sells charcoal-fuelled jikos for a living but this does not water down his passion for environmental conservation.

While the demand for charcoal fuel has enhanced indiscriminate felling of trees in Kenya today, Kinyanjui is on a mission to develop energy efficient jikos, and selling of tree seedlings.

Through Cookswell Jikos – a company his father founded, he believes he will help reverse negative impacts of charcoal burning on the environment.

“The company founded by my father Dr Maxwell Kinyanjui, designs, manufactures and markets high quality energy saving cooking devices; stoves, barbeques and ovens.

“We have developed an improved charcoal barrel kiln for carbonising ‘branch’ charcoal, that is, sustainable and harvested tree branches for the production of lump wood charcoal. We sell high quality seeds and provide land use planning and planting advice through our partners, the Woodlands 2000 Trust,” said Kinyanjui.

Kinyanjui sold his first jiko at five years old and planted his first tree when he was six. These feats he owes to his father who was then running the business.  Since his father retired from the business, Kinyanjui has developed over 19 models of energy saving stoves, charcoal ovens, nyama choma grills, multi-cookers and improved charcoal making kilns.

The smallest cook stoves sells at Sh380, the smallest ovens are Sh4,500 while the biggest multi-cooker goes for Sh16,000. The biggest oven is Sh45,000 while the kilns are Sh3,000 or Sh15,000 depending on size.

He gets most of his clients through various marketing strategies like the use of the Internet, flyers, posters and exhibitions.

Kinyajui, a business administration and urban planning graduate, says the only training he got on the business was ‘the excellent education’ from both his parents who were teachers.  

‘Chief sustainability officer’ title on his business card is a testament to his passion for environmental conservation.

 “I personally see holistic natural resource management as one of the most pressing issues that we can all individually influence positive change. It is in both my own and Kenya’s best interests to encourage beneficial forestry practices,” he says.

Kinyanjui says his major challenges include, the high cost of doing business in Kenya, expensive materials, electricity and fuel as well as poor government policy on the charcoal industry.

He says Kenya can easily grow all the high quality charcoal it needs and even become a solid fuel energy exporter (makaa) if the country plants enough trees.

His company Cookswell Jikos is based in Nairobi but has authorised dealers in Kampala and Kigali.