JAMALI Cooking Oil

In 1998 Jane Mathendu, a single mother of two who lives on the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, decided to save up all her money and buy an KickStart oilseed press. She already worked as a local schoolteacher but she needed to make more money to pay for her children's higher education. She looked around and saw that there would be a big market for the sunflower cooking oil and the bi-product seedcake, which is a nutritious animal feed.

She rented a small shop in Chuka town to start the business but initially she couldn't buy enough sunflower seed to keep the press busy. She soon solved this problem by contracting some local farmers to grow the seeds and she quickly made back her initial investment ($350) and much more.

Today she has left her job as schoolteacher to manage her business full time. She now contracts 20 local farmers to grow seeds and employs 2 full time workers who press over 16 litres of oil a day. She sells oil in bulk to a local hospital and school and in labelled bottles to her other customers. The seedcake is very popular with local farmers and she is now planning to buy a second press to meet the growing demand.

The new business makes Jane over $10 profit a day - a lot in a country where the average person lives on much less than a dollar a day and more than 4 times what she made as a teacher- and it has drastically changed her life. She has become a leader in local social groups and has managed to pay for her oldest daughter's University education - something she could only dream about before she bought her new KickStart press.