Rai to tighten market grip with new Sh5.2b sugar factory

Farmer transporting sugarcane in Muhoroni. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

Sukari Industries Ltd, linked to Kenyan tycoon Jaswant Rai, is seeking a nod to set up a new Sh5.132 billion factory in Trans Mara, Narok County.

The company has asked the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) to approve its proposed sugar mill with a potential for producing 3,000 tonnes of cane per day (TCD) expandable to 6,000 TCD.

"Sukari Industries Ltd wishes to establish a 3,000 TCD sugar cane milling factory at Moyoi, Lolgorian, Transmara East Sub-county Narok County," says the miller in regulatory filings seen by Standard Business.

"The proposed project has already procured a 20.195-hectare parcel of land to construct the envisaged 3,000-TCD factory and at the same time the staff quarter for technical and managerial staff."

Sukari Industries Ltd currently runs a sugar milling plant in Ndhiwa, Homa Bay County.

The new Narok factory with the potential to employ up to 400 people will see the Rai family take the battle for sugar billions to the doorstep of Mauritius' largest sugar miller Alteo which operates Transmara Sugar Company Ltd in the same Agricultural rich fields.

It will also see the wealthy Rai family who control a multi-billion sugar empire through their four giant millers of West Kenya, Olepito, Sukari and the newly opened Naitiri Sugar Company cement their dominance of the country's lucrative sugar market.

The wealthy Rai family extended its stranglehold on the lucrative local sugar sector by launching a fourth Sh5 billion modern milling plant in Bungoma County mid this year.