For nearly 15 years, Stella Auka lived with a condition she struggled to name but could never ignore: chronic constipation that slowly eroded her well-being. Doctors advised more water and more vegetables. She tried, but nothing changed.
Looking back, Stella traces part of the problem to a shift in diet that once felt aspirational. Raised in a household where vegetables were the norm and meat was a rare Christmas privilege, adulthood brought a different idea of ‘better living’: meat almost daily, full-fat milk tea brewed the Kenyan way, and vegetables cooked in milk for richness.
It was indulgence that felt deserved. But her body disagreed.
At 52, she made a decision that would reset her life. She eliminated animal protein from her diet and began each morning with water and fruit. Within weeks, her digestion improved. The constipation that had defined years of discomfort began to ease.
‘I didn’t understand what my body was telling me until I changed everything,’ she reflects.
What seemed like a personal health correction soon became something larger.
During this same period of dietary change and recovery, Stella began roasting peanuts for colleagues at the hotel where she worked to earn extra income. She started small, with just Sh1,000 in capital.
Within days, she had recovered her initial investment in profit. It was not yet a business. But it was a signal.
Just as the idea began to take shape, life shifted again.
In 2016, Stella was diagnosed with non-receptive breast cancer.
‘I died before achieving my vision,’ she says. ‘Not literally, but cancer almost took everything before I acted on what I knew I was meant to do.’
Treatment followed-18 months of uncertainty, hospital visits, and physical depletion. Yet even in that period, the idea of food as both livelihood and healing stayed with her.
When she regained her strength in 2017, she made a decision that would define her next chapter. She retired early, formalised her idea, and registered Broad Range Enterprise Ltd with her partner, Edmond Kwena.
She began again from her veranda with a jiko, which became her stove. A candle replaced industrial sealing equipment. Each batch of roasted groundnuts was packaged by hand and sold the following day. Everything sold. She repeated the process.
The business was simple in its early days, but demand was consistent.
Today, Broad Range employs seven staff and supplies hospitals, schools and wellness centres. Production has scaled significantly, with modern machinery now allowing the company to process up to 600 kilogrammes of nuts per month.
But Stella insists the growth has not been driven by ambition alone. It has been shaped by customer demand and necessity.
New products emerged organically: sesame butter for customers managing blood sugar, almond butter tailored to individual preferences, and custom flour blends designed for specific dietary needs.
At the centre of the business is cashew nut butter, a product Stella describes as both practical and symbolic. Broken cashew pieces once considered low-value by the industry, are now transformed into a premium product with margins of up to 40 percent.
The nuts are sourced directly from women’s cooperatives along the Kenyan coast. When supply runs low, she turns to processors, but she is deliberate about quality.
‘When someone eats our food and then eats something else, they can tell the difference,’ she says. ‘They come back.’
But the path from veranda operation to established enterprise has not been smooth.
In mid-2017, the introduction of Kenya’s plastic ban forced immediate changes. Stella had to borrow money to switch to biodegradable packaging. The cost was punishing.
‘The interest rates were so high, about six percent monthly,’ she recalls. ‘I spent nearly 18 months of profit just servicing the loan.’
Cash flow pressures intensified when supermarkets entered the picture. Their 90-day payment cycles were incompatible with a young business that relied on constant reinvestment.
Rather than collapse under the strain, Stella shifted strategy. She stepped away from heavy supermarket dependence and pursued alternative distribution channels that allowed faster returns.
What sustained the business through these early shocks was not scale, but resilience.
There were moments, she says, when survival depended on trust and teamwork. Even during a family health crisis, operations continued. Orders were fulfilled. The business stayed afloat.
‘Whenever people think I may have changed or disappeared, when they come back, I am still here doing the same thing,’ she says.
The numbers reflect that consistency. Cashew butter revenue has grown by more than 100 percent over three years, reaching about Sh100,000 between 2023 and 2025, driven entirely by word-of-mouth rather than advertising.
Beyond its own growth, Broad Range has begun to influence others. The company has trained the All About Nut Women Group in Mombasa, which she says now generates about Sh40,000 per month and is approaching break-even within eight months.
Export plans are now underway, with Stella working with Brand Kenya to meet certification requirements. The process is slow and costly, but she is determined.
Her philosophy remains unchanged: food should be clean, simple, and free from unnecessary additives. I
‘Most people who don’t eat healthily can’t afford to,’ she says. ‘But vegetables are the healthiest. You don’t have to eat expensive food.’
For Stella, the measure of success is not just financial. It is physical, practical, and deeply personal.
Fruit remains her most expensive grocery item. Hospital visits, she notes, are her cheapest-because she rarely needs them.