KENYA – Kakuzi PLC, a listed Kenyan agricultural company, has suffered a Kshs 329 million sectoral loss from its macadamia business in the half-year of 2023 a steep decline from the KES 330 million the business earned from the macadamia business last year.

As a result, the revenue of the company plummeted to KES 873.2 million from KES 1.03 billion which the company reported in the same period last year.

“The global macadamia glut continues to affect all leading international exporters from Kenya, Australia, and South Africa,” Kakuzi PLC Managing Director Chris Flowers said.

“To mitigate the losses, we have adopted a local marketing strategy geared at availing value added Macadamia products, including ready-to-eat nuts, macadamia flour, and cold-pressed oil.”

The Board said macadamia nut kernels are now selling for less than half the price recorded during the same period in 2022 even as production volumes from all source markets continue to grow.

The global macadamia glut situation is expected to persist throughout the balance of the 2023 financial year and perhaps into 2024.

The listed firm however posted a KES 171. 1 million half-year pretax profit on the back of a difficult trading period due to the prevailing Macadamia global glut.

As part of the new branding, Kakuzi has also officially launched a range of private-label consumer products for the domestic market, including ready-to-eat macadamia, gluten-free macadamia flour, cold-pressed macadamia oil, and blueberry packs.

While the macadamia business slowed, Kakuzi’s avocado sales accelerated, with exports to Europe and China peaking.

The firm more than doubled its profit from the avocado export business to KES 654.8 million growth, up from KES 288.6 million earned last year.

The company expects further growth from avocado in the year’s second half as exports to Malaysia and India begin to dispatch. Kakuzi has also expressed confidence in its Blueberry venture prospects.

Although our blueberry volumes are still significantly low vis-à-vis the Avocado and Macadamia outputs, the revenue stream remains firmly within the business plans and inspires further investments,” Kakuzi Chairman Nick Ng’ang’a explained.

“Further afield, the performance of the tea, forestry, livestock, and arable land operations continue to play their important role in our crop portfolio.”

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