Category: Business Daily

Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif announces Islamabad MoU signed between US and Iran. Iran to reopen Strait of Hormuz, US to lift naval blockade immediately; formal ceremony set for June 19 in Switzerland.

“As things stand, the plan is still for the US and Iran, along with mediators Pakistan and Qatar and other involved countries, to meet tomorrow at Buergenstock for initial negotiations about implementing the agreement.

“No further information is currently available regarding the schedule and details of this meeting,” the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement.

Money transfer charges levied by payment service providers (PSPs) such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money will be spared from the 16 percent value added tax (VAT) as MPs propose additional amendments to the Finance Bill, 2026 to exempt the cash transfer services.

The Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning has recommended further tweaks to the first Schedule of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act providing a clear distinction between mobile transfers and support services such as cash handling and payment processing.

The changes follow objections to the application of VAT on money transfers, payment processing, settlement, merchant acquiring, gateway or aggregation services by various stakeholders including Safaricom and Airtel which hold licenses as payment services providers (PSPs) from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).

The imposition of VAT on mobile money transfer charges would have increased the cost of payments via the platforms negating a drive to bring down the fees.

‘The committee recommended the amendment of the clause to adopt a broader, technology-neutral framework covering money transfer services and related transactions, while clearly distinguishing taxable transactions such as cash handling and payment processing,’ the Finance Committee said in its report on the consideration of the Finance Bill.

‘The committee further noted the need for a clear definition of ‘payment service provider’ to ensure certainty, consistency, and effective application of the law as contained in the Bill.’

Payment service providers led the objection to the proposal to levy VAT on the platforms highlighting its impact on the affordability of services by consumers.

Some 42 firms including Pesapal, Kenswitch, Airtel Money and M-Pesa would have been liable for value added taxes even as the National Treasury insisted that the tax was targeted at owners of platforms and not users.

Airtel Networks Kenya Limited warned the proposal would have resulted in double taxation as mobile money payments already attract excise duty.

‘Delete the proposal to retain the VAT-exempt status of money transfer services for affordability of mobile-money services and to promote an inclusive and digitally driven financial eco-system among others,’ Airtel said.

‘Furthermore, its deletion would preserve integrity and coherence of the tax framework designed to ensure that financial services are taxed once, either through the VAT or the excised duty regime.”

The Kuria Kimani-led committee recommended that the National Treasury adopt a clearer definition of the term-payment service provider-to ensure certainty, consistency and the effective application of the law as contained in the Bill.

Tax experts had warned that the VAT charge on payment service providers would have been payable by consumers as revenues earned by PSPs were generated from user fees.

For the widely used M-Pesa service with nearly 40 million users, and which was the pioneer mobile money service, the billions of shillings in daily transfers would have been a low-hanging fruit for exchequer revenues.

The application of VAT on the user charges would have made transfers costly rendering the goal of bringing down mobile-money charges sterile.

The Kenya National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2025-2028 by CBK for instance proposes caps to the cost of person-to-person mobile money transfers and seeks to reduce costs for users of mobile money from a baseline of Sh23 –the average cost per mobile money transaction in 2024– to a mean of Sh10 by 2028.

Charges on certain mobile money transactions are already as high as 6.9 percent of the amount being transferred, far outpacing what banks charge their retail customers to move cash.

‘M-Pesa user charges are already expensive, and this would only be a step in the wrong direction, ultimately sidelining some from using formal financial services,’ said David King’ori, a senior tax advisor at corporate law firm Bowmans Law.

M-Pesa charges Sh7 for transfers between Sh101 and Sh500 and a maximum of Sh108 for transfers above Sh50,000, while low-value transactions under Sh100 are free.

The proposal to apply VAT on mobile transfer platforms stemmed from a High Court ruling that saw judges bar the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) from collecting taxes from PSPs, including Pesapal and Kenswitch.

In its ruling, the High Court noted that the services of receiving, transferring and processing payments on behalf of third-party merchants were exempt from VAT.

Attempts to apply VAT on PSPs have been deemed discriminatory as traditional financial services have not been subjected to the same taxation attempts.

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) transactions, telegraphic money transfer services, foreign exchange transactions, cheque handling and loan underwriting are deemed as financial transactions and are exempt from VAT.

The issuance of securities for money, provision of guarantees and the issue, transfer and receipt of dealings with bonds or stocks are also exempt from VAT.

In terms of theatrical delivery, and in articulating the sweeping spending and revenue decisions central to economic policy, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi’s performance during this year’s budget presentation was impressive. He hit the right notes.

But the speech itself was unnecessarily long.

Historically, budget speeches had to be crafted to deliver absolute surprise. The contents of that iconic black briefcase, hoisted before cameras on Parliament’s steps, were genuinely confidential until the minister broke the seal.

Today, however, that mystique is dead. Anyone who has read the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) and the mountain of budget documents published weeks in advance of Budget Day already knows the script.

In an era of pre-published fiscal data, the grand, multi-hour budget speech has become an obsolete ritual. The length of the speech should reflect that.

Beyond the length, comparing this year’s presentation with the budget speeches of Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda-all delivered on the same day-reveals a troubling regional trend. What stands out is how effectively the EAC partner states have diluted the Common External Tariff (CET) of 35 percent.

If you count the sheer number of “stays of execution” allowed across the region, it becomes glaringly evident that organised lobbies and powerful domestic oligarchs now dictate what enters individual Finance Bills, particularly regarding customs duties.

The uncomfortable truth we must confront is that we no longer have a functional customs union to speak of. National protectionism and corporate capture have quietly hollowed it out from within.

Domestically, Mr Madi’s speech was a masterclass in the art of the large number, featuring allocations for every imaginable project, including a highly surreal budgetary line item for village elder allowances. We have, it seems, magically found money for everything.

But the question nobody is asking loudly enough is: where is the cash actually coming from?

Strip away the optics of Budget Day, and the real story of any Kenyan budget emerges not in June, but in March-six months into the financial year. That is when the data begins to paint a very different picture from the one presented to lawmakers.

March is when the structural cracks inevitably appear. We see exchequer releases that never arrived on time, supplementary budgets that quietly reshuffled priorities nobody voted for, and mushrooming expenditure arrears that reveal a government spending money it simply hasn’t collected. These mid-year reallocations expose what the state actually values, versus what it claimed to value during the televised pomp of June.

This is not cynicism; it is pattern recognition. Across administrations of Jomo Kenyatta; Daniel Moi; Mwai Kibaki; Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, Kenya has structurally failed to close the gap between printed estimates and actual expenditure. The annual budget document has too often functioned as a political wish list dressed up in official fiscal language.

Mr Mbadi is now the custodian of an ambitious spending programme at a moment when national fiscal space is virtually non-existent, revenue targets are routinely missed, and the public’s patience with state promises is wearing dangerously thin.

A glance at the monthly exchequer outturn data published regularly by the National Treasury shows that the primary source of macro-pressure remains debt service. There are months where the government spends up to 70 percent of ordinary revenues on debt repayments alone. Once you factor in public wages and constitutionally mandated disbursements to county governments, the state operates with zero fiscal headroom.

The coming months will demand constant, exhausting crisis management. To give credit where it is due, however, the team at the National Treasury has proven highly adept at this tightrope walk over the last three years, consistently improvising to avert worst-case scenarios.

When faced with Eurobond maturity pressure, they executed a buyback and extended tenors. When a domestic forex squeeze threatened fuel supply, they centralised imports and negotiated government-to-government credit.

Each intervention has drawn fierce criticism, and each carry significant long-term risk. Liability management does not reduce the overall debt burden; it merely pushes it down the road.

My parting shot: when the government persists in collecting taxes for services it does not provide; the inevitably consequence is the following; the tax base shrinks; forcing it to either borrow more or to print money.

Stakeholder management is often described as a soft skill, but in reality it is as much about understanding power as it is about communication. Within organisations, influence rarely flows only through formal structures. Relationships, shared history and informal networks often shape decisions long before official discussions begin.

For finance professionals, this creates a persistent challenge. We are trained to make decisions grounded in data, risk and accountability, ensuring they can withstand scrutiny.

Yet influence can sometimes outweigh process, weakening governance and shifting decisions from what is right to what is merely acceptable. For women in senior roles, the challenge can be greater, as professional firmness is occasionally misinterpreted as inflexibility.

Effective stakeholder management therefore requires consistency. Leaders must know where compromise is possible and where principles must hold. Respect for others is essential, but so is the willingness to stand firm when it matters.

Three disciplines are particularly important. First is clarity in decision-making. When decisions are anchored in data, policy and risk, there is less room for behind-the-scenes influence and power plays.

Second is maintaining boundaries. Strong leaders understand where flexibility ends and where rules must prevail. This is not about rigidity but about protecting the integrity of the organisation.

Third is composure under pressure. Influence is often tested during moments of resistance, and it is in these moments that steadiness signals authority. Leadership is frequently refined through the discipline of resisting compromises that undermine established principles.

Organisations also have a responsibility to examine their own cultures. Governance frameworks alone are insufficient if informal influence is routinely rewarded over accountability.

When hidden power shapes outcomes, leaders spend more time navigating politics than delivering results, with consequences for productivity, governance and risk management.

The focus, therefore, should not rest solely on individual resilience. Organisations must address the conditions that make political navigation necessary in the first place. Strong systems create the environment in which effective leadership can thrive.

Lawmakers have rejected the National Treasury’s proposal to raise excise duty on mobile phones from 10 percent to 25 percent and shift the tax payment point from importation to handset activation, citing concerns over affordability, tax administration and digital inclusion.

In its report on the Finance Bill, 2026, the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning recommended deleting the proposal, arguing that it would create compliance challenges, delay revenue collection and expose consumers to uncertainty.

The Treasury had proposed increasing the excise duty on mobile phones to 25 percent while moving the tax point from importation or factory release to the point at which a handset is activated on a mobile network.

The proposal was part of a plan to overhaul all taxes on imported phones.

However, MPs said shifting the tax point to activation would delay revenue collection from the point of importation to the point of sale and create confusion for consumers who could unknowingly purchase devices on which excise duty had not been paid.

The proposal had sparked concerns from telecom sector analysts, who flagged an ambiguity in the meaning of the ‘activation’ stage, on which taxes were payable on devices.

‘The committee further observed that the proposal could undermine efficient tax administration and negatively affect the affordability and accessibility of mobile phones,’ the finance committee’s report states.

It added that more research and stakeholder consultations were needed before such a policy could be implemented. The proposal had attracted opposition from phone dealers, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry and several law firms and consultancies.

Stakeholders argued that the higher excise tax could undermine digital inclusion efforts, discourage local assembly and investment in the ICT sector, and increase the cost of accessing communication and digital services.

In a separate win for local smartphone assemblers, MPs also rejected a proposal to reclassify locally assembled mobile phones and lithium-ion batteries from zero-rated to VAT-exempt status. Zero-rated supplies attract no tax, allowing businesses to recover input VAT while exempt supplies do not allow input claims.

The committee recommended retaining the zero-rated status introduced under the Finance Act, 2023, saying it has helped lower production costs and support investment in local manufacturing.

‘The Committee observed that these items were recently granted zero-rated status under the Finance Act, 2023 to support local manufacturing and reduce the cost of essential goods. Reversing this position would increase production costs, discourage investment, and undermine predictability in the tax system,’ the report says.

The decision preserves access to VAT refunds claimed by local assemblers, including M-Kopa, Sun King and East African Device Assembly Kenya. The refunds have helped subsidise the cost of locally assembled smartphones targeting low-income consumers over the past three years.

The parliamentary recommendations come amid growing scrutiny of the government’s smartphone taxation policy after the National Treasury walked back plans to eliminate the 25 percent East African Community (EAC) customs duty on imported handsets.

The Treasury had initially proposed removing the customs duty alongside the 16 percent value-added tax, the 2.5 percent import declaration fee and the two percent railway development levy, while raising excise duty to 25 percent.

Had all the taxes been removed except the new excise duty, the total tax burden on imported smartphones would have fallen from about 55.5 percent to 25 percent, significantly reducing retail prices.

However, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi last week confirmed that Kenya would instead seek a duty exemption on imported inputs used in the local assembly of smartphones while retaining the customs duty on finished devices.

Still, Kenya cannot unilaterally abolish the customs duty because it is set under the EAC common external tariff framework and would require approval from the regional bloc.

As a result, taxes on imported smartphones are now expected to fall only marginally to about 50 percent from the current 54.5 percent.

This is well above the 25 percent burden the government had initially projected, which leaves Kenyans exposed to high imported mobile phone prices.

The performance of the Starlink network in Kenya has deteriorated further as a widening customer base strains capacity, slowing average speeds and eroding the value for money of its internet service.

Latest speed tests by network intelligence firm Ookla reveal that Starlink’s internet speed in Kenya stood at 34.55 megabits per second (Mbps) as of March 2026, a 26 percent drop from 47 Mbps a year earlier and an all-time low.

The decline follows growing subscriber numbers in Kenya amid Starlink’s continued expansion, with many of its markets relying on ground infrastructure in Nairobi and Johannesburg.

As of March, Starlink had 24,999 subscribers in Kenya, according to the latest Communications Authority data, accounting for 0.9 percent of the market and marking a steep rise from 17,066 a year earlier.

Bandwidth strain

According to Ookla, Starlink’s declining performance in Kenya is directly linked to the surge in subscriptions, which continues to strain its network and reduce available bandwidth for a growing number of users.

‘Countries including Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Madagascar show signs of bandwidth bottlenecks. This aligns with the heavily populated or highly subscribed countries that forced Starlink to pause sign-ups,’ said Ookla’s lead industry analyst for the Middle East and Africa, Karim Yaici.

Kenya now has the third-highest number of Starlink subscribers in Africa after Zimbabwe and Nigeria, which have 67,067 and 66,523 customers respectively. This places Kenya among the African markets where the American firm has recorded widespread adoption and commercial success.

Speed decline

However, countries that have seen widespread Starlink adoption in Africa have also recorded some of the sharpest declines in speeds, pointing to growing pressure on bandwidth as more users join the network.

The three countries with the highest number of subscribers now record some of the lowest speeds on the continent. Nigeria recorded average speeds of 48.37 Mbps, while Zimbabwe recorded 34.37 Mbps. Most countries on the continent report speeds of more than 50 Mbps.

The worsening performance of the Starlink network has narrowed its lead over local internet service providers in Kenya, with its average speeds now only 2.24 times higher than the average speeds offered by local ISPs.

This has slowed the uptake of Starlink’s services in Kenya, with local telecommunications firms, including Safaricom and Mawingu, outpacing it in customer acquisition and market penetration.

After pausing new sign-ups in November 2024 because of capacity constraints, Starlink’s market share in Kenya shrank and is yet to recover. Smaller ISPs, including Vilcom Networks and Ahadi Wireless, have since overtaken it in the market.

Last year, Starlink added only 3,136 customers, a significant slowdown from the 8,063 it added in 2024 and the 11,083 it gained within its first year of operation in Kenya, reflecting possible customer dissatisfaction with declining speeds.

Across Africa, demand for aquatic foods is increasing as population grows. Yet, supply is struggling to keep the pace.

This matters because aquatic foods are not a niche product in Africa.

They are an important source of food, livelihoods and trade.

According to the latest edition of the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Mombasa, aquatic animal foods provide 19 percent of animal protein available in the continent, which is the second highest share globally compared to other regions.

In some countries and communities, particularly along coasts, rivers and lakes, that contribution is even higher. Yet, Africa has the lowest per capita availability of aquatic animal foods in the world, 9.2kg per person and year, half of the global average.

This highlights a challenge: aquatic foods are key to food security and nutrition in Africa but availability is struggling to keep pace with demand. For too long, discussions about Africa’s food security primarily focused on land-based agriculture.

Crops and livestock are and will remain important, but Africa’s blue economy, including oceans, lakes and rivers are increasingly important and deserves greater strategic attention.

Sustainable wild capture fisheries are indispensable for a sustainable blue economy. They account for 54 percent of global aquatic animal production, while inland fisheries feed and nourish millions.

Across the Great Lakes region, the Niger basin, the Congo basin, and countless freshwater systems, inland fisheries provide affordable nutrition where alternatives are often limited and support millions of jobs across the value chain in rural communities where alternatives are limited.

However, capture fisheries alone cannot nourish Africa’s future food needs. However, wild fish stocks have biological limits and many are under pressure. At the same time, Africa’s population continues to grow faster than any other region in the world.

According to the FAO, Africa’s aquatic food production must grow by seven percent by 2050 to ensure current per capita availability of aquatic foods. Unless action is taken supply growth will not keep up with production growth, reducing per capita availability, adding pressure to other food systems.

Even today Africa relies on imported aquatic animal products to support domestic availability. The continent is a net importer of aquatic products by volume (measured in product weight). As the population grows and fish prices remain under pressure, the question of affordable protein is becoming urgent. This is where aquaculture can offer a solution.

Aquaculture, the farming of fish and other aquatic animals, is the fastest-growing food production sector globally, and Africa is leading this growth rate. Since 2000, aquaculture production on the continent has grown by an average of almost eight percent annually, but despite this the continent still produces only 2.3 percent of global animal aquaculture production.

This underscores the potential in Africa, as aquaculture accounts for only 18 percent of the total aquatic animal production.

Countries such as Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia are demonstrating what is possible.

Egypt alone produces two-thirds of Africa’s farmed fish. But apart from a few other countries, the sector’s potential remains largely untapped. Small-scale producers, the backbone of production in many countries, still struggle to access the financial and technical support to expand their output.

Closing this gap will require that governments treat fisheries and aquaculture and the broader ocean economy as strategic sectors linked to food security, employment and economic resilience in line with the ambitions of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.

This means investing in research, improving aquaculture seed and feed supply systems, strengthening extension services and creating enabling policy environments that encourage private sector investments. It also means strengthening the management of inland and marine fisheries, which remain essential for nutrition, livelihoods and local economies in Africa.

But the challenge now is not simply to increase production.

Africa also has an opportunity to build aquatic food systems that are more inclusive, resilient and sustainable.

The continent still has time to avoid some of the environmental mistakes seen elsewhere, for example by promoting efficient aquaculture systems based on responsible water use, strong biosecurity and better spatial planning from the outset.

Kenya’s security agencies are the biggest winners in the freshly tabled second supplementary budget for the current 2025-26 financial year, which proposes to raise spending by Sh17.29 billion to a total Sh4.66 trillion.

Documents from the National Treasury tabled in the National Assembly show that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is earmarked for a Sh3.5 billion increase in its budget to Sh64.9 billion, while the allocation to the Internal Security and National Administration would be raised by Sh1.6 billion to Sh57.9 billion.

Together, the NIS and the State Department for Internal Security account for 29.2 percent of the proposed mini-budget.

The National Assembly is now caught in a race against time to consider and pass Supplementary Budget II, just two weeks before the end of the current financial year while simultaneously considering the Appropriations Bill 2026 which captures the estimates for 2026/27.

‘I am advised the second supplementary estimates seek to revise allocations in respect of a few votes, largely for purposes of reallocation and regularisation of the expenditures. Noting the limited scope of the second supplementary estimates and the period between now and June 30, 2026, the estimates shall only be referred to the Budget and Appropriations Committee.

“The Committee may, where necessary, liaise with the relevant departmental committees under whose mandate the affected votes fall’, National Assembly Speaker, Moses Wetan’gula, said on Tuesday.

According to the National Treasury, the NIS budget has been raised because of enhanced security operations, while the extra cash allocation to the State Department for Internal Security is attributed to rising demand for national government coordination services.

The Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund is set for Sh4.1 billion increase in its budget, which is earmarked for financing capital grants to government agencies to support development and management of sports facilities.

The State Department for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises is the second biggest gainer with the proposed increase of its budget by Sh3.85 billion to Sh12.09 billion.

The increase reflects additional donor commitment towards the National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) programme, with the number of those targeted for skills training in the 2025/26 fiscal year being raised to 50,000 from the initial 17,500.

Spending pressures

Provision for additional financing for the construction of Mwache Dam in Kinango, Kwale County has pushed the allocation for the State Department for Water and Irrigation up by Sh2.3 billion to Sh60.33 billion.

The State Department for Youth Affairs and Creative Economy is set for a Sh1.94 billion increase in its allocation, which will be dedicated towards entrepreneurship and talent development.

Spending pressures for national examinations and assessments have necessitated a Sh1.5 billion increase in the budget for the State Department for Basic Education, which is now expected to close the financial year at Sh132.67 billion.

Between 2024 and 2025, the number of examination centres for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education increased from 10,755 to 10,771 while the number of candidates increased by 3.2 percent to 995,841.

In 2025, the number of candidates who sat for the Kenya Junior School Education Assessment stood at 1.11 million. The allocation for State House in the current financial year is set to increase by Sh1.0 billion in what is being attributed to enhanced operations and maintenance.

The National Treasury’s budget is set for a Sh2.5 billion cut as the government rationalises spending under the Contingencies Fund, which is the kitty designed to provide for rapid financing in the case of emergencies such as natural disasters, disease outbreaks and any unplanned emergencies.

In 1979, the founders of Brown’s Food Company decided to go into the dairy industry with two cows. Over four decades later, they have given birth to a venture dominating cheese-making, not only in Kenya but across the East African region.

Originally Brown’s Cheese, the dairy products-making company managed by the second generation, was established by David and Sue Brown as a solar heater manufacturing firm while keeping only a few cows for household milk consumption.

Now, the family-owned company produces cheese wheels, some costing as high as Sh100,000 a piece, with a keen eye on high-end markets, including exports within East Africa.

‘When our parents started the business, they were initially focused on solar heaters while keeping a few cows for household milk. During a prolonged drought, cheddar cheese became scarce in the market, forcing the family to experiment with making cheese at home,’ Delia Andrew, who co-owns the company with her spouse, tells the BDLife.

The first lesson

That experiment, she says, became the first lesson in entrepreneurship: opportunity often emerges from constraint. What started as a household activity soon attracted interest from friends and early customers.

‘They [friends] began asking for more cheese, and that slowly transformed into commercial production,’ says Delia.

From the beginning, another guiding principle took centre stage-only produce what the family would confidently consume before scaling it for the market, a philosophy Delia says has helped the company maintain quality discipline even as it expanded.

When she joined the business about 16 years ago, she stepped into a company still rooted in farm-based production but already carrying the ambition of expansion.

The second lesson

That moment, she says, marked a second lesson: growth must be structured, not accidental. ‘Our involvement marked a shift from informal growth to structured scaling, where systems, quality control and product diversification became central,’ she says.

One of the earliest decisions under her leadership was opening up the farm to visitors, a move she describes as a deliberate lesson in transparency and trust-building.

‘Consumers are not just buyers. They want to understand how food is made and where it is made from,’ she says, noting that openness became part of the company’s competitive advantage.

Business resilience

Over time, Brown’s Food Company expanded beyond cheese into other value-added products, including flour milling. Delia says this diversification was driven by another key entrepreneurial lesson-resilience comes from not depending on a single product line.

‘We realised we could not just focus on milk. We had to look at the entire farming system, ranging from soil, crops, and livestock to nutrition altogether,’ she notes.

Brown’s Food Company now processes more than 20,000 litres of milk per day, sourced from around 6,000 farmers in Molo, Kinangop and Embu. The milk is transformed into multiple products, but cheese remains the most complex and most valuable output.

Capital for expansion remains one of the key challenges for many entrepreneurs, and Delia says that their family business strategy has been to avoid over-borrowing credit. ‘That discipline has kept us stable,’ she says.

Over the years, the business has increased its workforce. When she joined, they had 25 workers, and the company employs about 300. Exports are growing too, accounting for about 25 percent of production within East Africa, mainly to Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, with future expansion targeting Dubai and China.

At the centre of the business is cheese-making, which Delia insists is not manufacturing but biological transformation.

‘Cheese is alive. It continues to ferment and mature over time. It is not static. It evolves,’ she says.

Unlike fresh milk, cheese, just like wine, appreciates in value with time, a reality that has shaped the company’s investment in ageing rooms where temperature and humidity are tightly controlled.

Some wheels are aged for months, others for years, developing richer flavour profiles and higher market prices. In premium cases, a single wheel weighing about 25 kilogrammes can fetch over Sh100,000 depending on its age, quality and type.

‘A kilogramme of an aged cheese wheel, matured for up to six years, sells for not less than Sh4,000,’ Delia says.

Brown’s produces a wide range of cheeses, including mozzarella and pizza cheese for hotels and fast-food chains, alongside aged varieties such as parmesan, gouda, camembert, brie and feta for specialty markets. It also produces yogurt, butter and ice cream, often blended with fruits sourced from farmers.

Expansion challenges

Even with the immense growth, expansion has come with challenges. Delia says one of the most persistent is distribution, particularly maintaining the cold chain from production to market.

‘Once temperature control is broken, you cannot recover product quality. That is why we invested in our own distribution fleet,’ she says

Another major challenge is milk quality consistency, especially for ageing cheeses, where small variations at the farm level can affect flavour months later.

To mitigate these challenges, Phineas David, the company’s quality controller, explains that milk collection systems were developed gradually alongside expansion.

‘The company now operates cooling and collection centres in Embu, Molo and Kinangop, working closely with farmers to ensure quality begins at the source,’ he says.

He notes that milk intake has grown from about 15,000 to 18,000 litres per day from earlier years to around 35,000 litres currently. They have had to be involved in the milk production process and keep the farmers happy.

Farmers, he says, are supported with veterinary services, training and inputs to improve productivity, while payments are made twice a month directly to their bank accounts after verification. ‘Quality starts on the farm. If milk is compromised there, no amount of processing can fix it later,’ Phineas says.

The company works with over 6,000 farmers and has built traceability systems that track products from farm to final cheese wheel, ensuring accountability at every stage.

Taxation pressures

However, rising milk prices, taxation pressures and input costs continue to squeeze margins, making efficiency and diversification critical for survival.

Delia says this pressure has reinforced entrepreneurial diversification, noting that it has come with a key lesson: never depend on a single product or market.

The company has since ventured into flour milling under Groven Meadow, incorporating indigenous crops such as sorghum, millet and traditional beans into its product line to promote biodiversity and nutrition.

She says the company is also exploring plant-based cheese, driven by rising lactose intolerance and shifting dietary preferences.

‘There are consumers who cannot tolerate lactose, and we are working on plant-based alternatives while maintaining the same philosophy of quality and integrity,’ she says.

Running the family-owned company, Delia observes that entrepreneurship has ultimately been about learning to adapt without losing identity-building a business that grows, evolves and matures much like its own cheese: slowly, deliberately, and with increasing value over time.

Lewis Hamilton has won Formula One world championships driving for different teams across different eras of the sport. McLaren. Mercedes. Ferrari. That is not merely talent. It is

transferable dominance. It means the driver was never just succeeding inside one machine.

He understood the game deeply enough to keep winning even as technology, politics and systems shifted around him.

Hamilton does not enter races hoping that participation itself is the victory. He arrives to win.

That distinction matters more than it first appears because not everyone enters the same competition with the same definition of success.

The Fifa World Cup quietly teaches this every four years. For some nations, qualification alone is already a historic achievement. Streets erupt. Airports fill. The country has

arrived at football’s highest stage. For others, qualification means almost nothing. Anything short of lifting the trophy is treated as failure. Same tournament. Completely different psychological contracts with winning.

This week, another version of that same question played out politically. President William Ruto attended the G7 Summit discussions despite Kenya not being a G7 country. Depending

From a perspective, that appearance can be interpreted in two different ways.

One view says Kenya is simply being allowed near power while the real decisions remain elsewhere.

The other says something more strategic is happening. The global order is shifting. By 2050, several of today’s dominant economies may no longer occupy the same centre of gravity

they currently do. Influence is moving eastward. Demographics are changing. Technology is redistributing leverage. Africa’s relevance is becoming less theoretical.

So perhaps showing up today is not symbolic at all.

Perhaps it is positioning. What exactly does winning mean to you? Because many founders spend years chasing definitions they inherited without ever interrogating them.

For some, winning is survival.

The company is still alive after years of brutal pressure. Salaries are paid. Debt has not swallowed the business. In unstable

environments, survival is not a small achievement. Getting invited into rooms that once felt inaccessible. Being taken seriously by investors, governments or industries that previously ignored them. Showing up itself becomes evidence of movement.

Then there are founders for whom winning means scale. Regional expansion. Institutional capital. Market leadership. Global recognition. These founders are not trying merely to

participate in the industry. They are trying to alter the hierarchy inside it.

And finally, there are those rare builders who arrive intending to change the game itself. Not simply to succeed within the system, but to redesign what success means for everyone after them. These are completely different forms of ambition. The problem begins when founders confuse one category for another.

Social media amplifies this confusion daily. A founder surviving impossible pressure compares himself to another founder scaling with institutional capital and assumes he is

losing. A profitable entrepreneur feels inadequate because a venture-backed startup appears larger online. A founder rebuilding quietly after a collapse believes he has failed

because someone else just closed another funding round.

But founders are often competing in entirely different tournaments while pretending they are in the same one.

This is why the African Founders Operating System matters beyond philosophy. It forces founders to understand context before judgment.

Strategically, winning is never static.

Timing matters. Environment matters. Leverage matters.

Emotionally, the danger becomes externalising your scoreboard. Once founders allow public perception to define victory, they become psychologically trapped. Every funding round becomes validation. Every setback becomes an identity collapse. Winning that depends entirely on applause, which eventually becomes emotional debt.

Socially, ecosystems reward different things at different stages. Some rooms reward visibility. Others reward endurance. Others reward proximity to power. Founders who misunderstand the social architecture of the game, often mistake temporary attention for long-term positioning.

Spiritually, the question becomes harder still. What happens when you achieve the version of winning the world celebrates, only to realise it costs your health, peace, family, or integrity? Was that winning, or merely successful self-destruction?

And in mindset, perhaps the greatest shift is understanding that not every season requires domination.

Some seasons require survival. Some require rebuilding. Some require positioning quietly before acceleration.

Not every founder starts from the same line. Not every business has access to the same capital, networks, or insulation from political and economic shocks.

Yet despite this, many founders still carry shame for not “winning fast enough.” The mistake is not in showing up. The mistake is remaining there forever while convincing yourself that participation alone was the destination.

The first victory is entry. The deeper victory is influence. The rarest victory of all is changing what the game rewards after you arrive. And perhaps that is the real founder question.

Are you trying to survive the tournament, win the tournament or redesign the league itself?

Perhaps we need a more mature understanding of competitive reality. Showing up matters. Survival matters. Positioning matters. Scaling matters. Changing the game matters. But they are not the same thing.

Lewis Hamilton did not begin with transferable dominance. First, he had to enter the circuit. Some World Cup teams may never lift the trophy, but participation itself changes national confidence and identity. Kenya attending the global tables today may not yet mean control, but it may signal long-term strategic positioning in a changing world order.