Keroche Breweries, founded by leading Kenyan entrepreneur Tabitha Karanja, is all set to launch its new, ultra-modern and automated beer bottling plant in March. The Naivasha-based bottling plant will commence full operations end March producing over 30 beer brands, increasing Keroche Brwereries annual beer production from 10m litres to 100m litres. The investment in the new plant has been estimated at 2.5 Billion Kenyan Shillings.
According to Keroche CEO Mrs Tabitha Karanja, "The new plant will have the capacity of packaging 30 different brands of beer and it should be fully operation in a couple of weeks". Karanja stated the new plant would have the capacity of producing 600,000 bottles per day, with a daily production capacity of 250 hecto-litres and a yearly production of up to 1m hecto-litres. She added, "Currently we are producing 60,000 bottles per day from the other factory and once this plant is ready we shall be producing 600,000 bottles".
The Keroche expansion comes against the backdrop of a liquor industry in the country that is. Karanja was also pleased that the new plant would creat much needed local jobs, stating "Once complete we expect the brewery to employ over 100 people directly and tens of others indirectly". Karanja also stated her company was now targeting the East-Africa region beer market in a big way, a market that has been monopolized for years.
- Tabitha Karanja is founder and CEO of Keroche Breweries. She is one of Kenya's leading entrepreneurs, a remarkable trailblazer and an example of a woman made good against all the odds. Tabitha chose to venture where none before her had dared. She took on an 87-year-old business monopoly and entered an industry with a deeply entrenched male gender stereotype. Tabitha broke the mould to become Kenya’s first home-grown beer and alcoholic drink manufacturer. Today, her company's state-of-the-art factory produces 10,000 bottles of gin and ready-to-drink vodka, as well as 15,000 bottles of beer per hour.
For her enormous contribution in liberalizing the liqour market in Kenya, Tabitha was honored by President Mwai Kibaki in 2010 with a most significant Kenyan accolade - the Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (M.B.S.) Award.
Read Tabitha's full LoA profile here.