If you sit down to a traditional Kenyan meal, you will probably be eating ugali, one of the most popular dishes in Kenya, also served across the African continent. Maize or corn flour, poured into boiling water is mixed until it thickens into a dough-like consistency. Ugali then takes center stage on any Kenyan table, surrounded by smaller plates of stews, as diners tear balls of the ugali, role it between their fingers and use their thumbs to make a small indentation with which to scoop up the accompanying curries and vegetable dishes.

If you eat ugali in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, the maize was probably milled by Pembe Flour Mills Ltd. A family business that originated in Kenya, Pembe Flour Mills has today spread across East Africa through a network of sister businesses in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Burundi, and Rwanda. Pembe Flour Mills is one of the largest producers of maize in Kenya, meaning it plays a key role in protecting the country’s food security. Maize provides one of the most affordable sources of calories among the cereal grains. Research published in the American Journal of Food and Nutrition shows that maize provides around 65 percent of the total staple food calorific intake in Kenya. Producers are also required to fortify the maize they mill with vitamins and minerals providing additional health benefits.

“Physical access to sufficient, safe, and affordable food is very important for an economy and Pembe Flour Mills is one of the lead manufacturers of feed and food and one of the main manufacturers of a staple product in the country, which is maize meal,” explains Suad Salim Abubaker, Director of Pembe Flour Mills Ltd. “This makes it very important that we have quality and efficiency in our production to ensure we have sufficient product to feed the nation.” 

Pembe processes a range of different raw materials at its Nairobi milling site, including animal feed, millet, sorghum, wheat, and wholegrain wheat. Despite very stiff competition in the fast-growing African milling sector the company’s relationship with Bühler stretches back over twenty years, during which it has been using a mix of Bühler technologies along with solutions from other providers. 

Pembe has relied on Bühler for technologies and solutions since the 1980s, including a maize mill and sorghum plant, a feed mill, and wheat mills. A new maize mill and an Atta plant were commissioned in 2021. Bühler has, over the years, also retrofitted newer technologies into Pembe’s older mills on the Nairobi site. One of the drivers to modernize processes for Pembe has been rising energy prices across East Africa. Improving energy efficiency with new generation technologies is a sound commercial decision for Pembe. It is also in line with Bühler’s commitment to have solutions ready to multiply by 2025 that reduce energy, waste, and water by 50 percent in the value chains of its customers.

In recent years, Pembe had experienced problems with its non-Bühler feed plant, which impacted productivity. Bühler’s local services team retrofitted the feed mill and, as a result, downtime has been reduced significantly. “Prior to working with Bühler we were having more downtime due to a lack of efficient technical support from our other suppliers. We were also having various issues in the procuring of spare parts from them,” explains Suad Salim Abubaker.

In 2019 Pembe decided to build a maize mill on its Nairobi site, choosing to go for a total Bühler solution. The deciding factors in choosing Bühler were the existing long-term relationship between the two companies as well as Pembe’s desire for a strong customer support network to cut its production downtimes. Bühler has had a presence in East Africa since the early 1960s. Today it offers its East African customers access to a network of engineers based in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania, with the head office based in Nairobi also offering engineering backup. It means regional offices support each other whenever skills are required so that customers can receive timely backup when they face production challenges. 

“A maize mill provides a staple food in Kenya so in terms of food security it matters a lot that Pembe is always running, to help maintain the nation’s food supplies,” explains Salim Abubakar, family member and fellow director. “Bühler having an East African office has been a game changer for us as we get spare parts in good time, which has resulted in our profitability going up as our downtime is reduced.” 

Reducing production downtime is becoming increasingly important for all East African maize producers. Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows that between 2018 and 2021 Kenya’s maize production fell from 44.6m bags to 34.3m bags as drought, rising temperatures, and climate related pest infestations impact crop yields. At the same time demand for maize is increasing as the population grows. Currently at 55 million, according to the United Nations World Population Prospects, Kenya’s population is growing by 2 percent adding a million more mouths to feed annually. This growing mismatch between supply and demand, compounded by rising fertilizer and energy costs, has led to price increases.

Solomon Mwangi, Bühler Sales Director for Kenya and Somalia, has been watching the rising price of maize on the open market. “We are in a region where supply of the raw material is decreasing, and demand is rising. I have seen the average price of a 90-kilogram (kg) bag of maize rising from 2,000 Kenyan shillings three years ago to 6,000 shillings today,” explains Mwangi. “When this is happening to a staple food it is worrying, which is why it is so important for millers to be at their most efficient when it comes to the processing of the raw material to ensure the maximum extraction at the highest quality. In the end our customer is the end consumer and if they can’t afford the product because our process is inefficient, we are in trouble, so we need to make the process as efficient and therefore as affordable as possible.” 

Designed by Bühler, the new Pembe maize mill started production in mid-2022 producing 450 tonnes of maize daily, sold in bags for the domestic market as well as larger 50 kg bags for schools and other institutions. Part of the mill also produces 75 tonnes of milled whole wheat daily. The mill has been installed with the latest Sortex optical sorting technologies as well as the full factory automation system Bühler Mercury Manufacturing Execution System (MES). 

The new technologies and the local support network are already beneficial for Pembe. “The quality of the Pembe maize meal has improved since working with Bühler because the introduction of the Mercury system means I can access data anywhere. Our downtime has now been cut by 70 percent while our extraction levels are up by 3 percent,” says Abubakar Abdallah, Operations Manager at Pembe Mills. “We are also benefitting from the Sortex technology in ensuring the high-end quality of the product through the removal of discolored maize and wheat and also reducing the level of the aflatoxins.”

A key requirement of food security is the need for food to be safe. High temperatures, wet harvests, and high moisture levels post-harvest all make aflatoxins a major challenge to domestic and regional food trade in East Africa. The mold formed on crops like maize in these adverse climate conditions can cause serious illness, including liver cancer. Aflatoxin poses a major challenge for the African milling sector and so risks undermining food security. Even low-level aflatoxin contamination of crops that are eaten regularly is known to increase liver cancer risk suppress the immune systems. The potential public health risk means regular laboratory testing of grain deliveries is required to ensure contamination levels are within the safe threshold. 

In addition to laboratory testing, the optical sorting techniques used in the integrated Sortex solution maximize food quality and safety. Sortex analyzes each individual kernel, removing those that are discolored or diseased, as well as any that might cause cross contamination and any foreign material.   

Located in the capital’s industrial sector, the Pembe site in Nairobi is set in an area of unplanned settlements. These semi-permanent communities are a common sight in major African cities, often providing the only affordable housing for first generation families migrating from the countryside into cities in search of work. Due to the proximity of these homes to the mill, Bühler installed reverse jet filters, to ensure minimal dust emissions that could impact local people. 

In a bid to support their community the directors of Pembe Mills have adopted a policy of recruiting workers locally and skilling them up, either through on-the-job training or courses run by Bühler’s African Milling School in Nairobi. This helps tackle another challenge that affects the milling industry not only in East Africa but globally: the shortage of milling skills.

“One of the consequences of a long-term customer relationship is that you get to know a company’s pain points. In addition to rising material costs, we understand another pain point for Pembe is a skills shortage, which we have been helping them to address through the African Milling School,” explains Mwangi. 

Founded it 2015 by Bühler, the African Milling School offers a range of vocational training courses designed to increase grain processing knowledge across Africa and the Middle East and so reduce dependence on foreign specialists. Prior to its opening, students had to attend the Swiss milling school or head for an American state university to get specialist training, neither of which were particularly affordable options. By providing skills locally that help improve yield rates, the school is helping companies maximize efficiencies and improve food security. “The school offers many different types of training to lots of businesses across Africa, including short courses, remote learning, and apprenticeships, which is an area where Pembe has been very active. They were early believers in the school,” says Mwangi. 

Kenya is an example of how a nation’s food security requires a complex mix of strategies capable of adapting to climate change, population growth, and the economic vagaries impacting on food processors. While technology will always play an important part in improving extraction rates from raw materials it is also the relationship building between customer and solution provider that provides some of the more important improvements when it comes to keeping adequate food supplies affordable and safe. “We feel that Bühler and Pembe are in step and so it means we feel at home because of the level of service and customer care we get,” says Salim Abubakar.