Juliet Oduor: My son's allergic reaction birthed thriving cassava flour business

"I decided to do research on gluten-free flour. At that time, it was still a foreign term in the country. The price was very high where, and when, it was available. I realised, after research, that we had various gluten-free flour here in the country, which were mainly used to make uji and ugali."

Business idea

An experiment later, Ms Oduor was already in the first stages of starting a business. She bought the gluten-free flour and, in her kitchen, made pancakes, "also just trying to see if I could make something from millet, sorghum, cassava and the local flours that we had."

When attending parties, she could bake a gluten-free cake that gave her sons (her firstborn had also experienced mild allergic reactions to gluten) an option. Those who tried the cake wanted some more, a number telling her their bodies reacted negatively to wheat intake, but that they lacked alternative foods.

So she sold them flours.

A sample of cassava flour. [Peter Theuri, Standard]

"We want to scale up production, and USADF is also keen on empowering the community, especially women, so when we scale up production we are able to work with more farmers. We do not deal with middlemen - we want to work with farmers directly and give them a competitive price so they can also reap the benefits of what they are doing," she says.

The young company, which employs four in Siaya and two in Nairobi, has scaled up production and recently started stocking up at Quickmart Supermarkets. In 2020, the annual sales hit Sh350,000. Last year, it was Sh1.2 million. Both have been achieved through the tempestuous periods of Covid-19 pandemic.

Global dream

Her dream is to expand to other towns, and then countries in the region before the company can unfurl its wings and go global.

"Setting up an industry is not easy, I wanted to be firmly established here (Siaya) before we can consider expanding to other parts of the country. But mostly I want to do it in rural communities," she says. She hopes that as more farmers get back to cassava farming, so will her ability to expand increase.

Her competitive advantage comes in the high quality she promises her customers, she says, born partly out of her experience in the market when she was looking for, with little success, the flours she now makes.

"There is competition but we produce high-quality cassava flour. Also, having bought from the market before, I was determined to ensure that I offer good quality products. Cassava is very light so you find there are people adding other things to bulk up the weight. We do not contaminate products."

She studied biomedical research technology and has a postgraduate degree in occupational safety and health.

The latter, she says, helps her ensure her staff are safe at work and that the food produced by her company is of good quality. She has also secured a scholarship to pursue MBA with the Business School of Netherlands, which she started this month.

Ms Oduor dreams of opening a big industrial facility in Siaya, which can employ locals in their hundreds.

"We do not have an industrial facility in Siaya County so I want to build the first one that will employ many young people and just transform the region," she says.