SINA GERARD / Enterprise Urwibutso promoting agro-processing

SInA GerArd / enterprISe

urwIButSO PROMOTING AGRO-PROCESSING

By JeJJe MuhInde

He is commonly well-known as Rwanda’s foremost agri-business entrepreneur. His interests are diverse spanning restaurants, bakeries, a juice and wine factory, a school and extensive land holdings.

Sina Gerard says he started practically with nothing, his rise to the top is a basically because his business is oriented towards agroprocessing.

The company he started Sina Gerard / Enterprise Urwibutso is located at Nyirangarama in Rulindo District, Northern Province about 45km north from the City of Kigali. For those travelling, a stop at Urwibutso is a must because of delicious and freshly goodies.

Sina’s moving story is the best example that opportunities in Rwanda’s agri-business sector can give to real and upcoming entrepreneurs.

“My enterprise is agri-business based; we use technology to add value to our products. For instance, we use innovation and technology make juice out of pineapples, carrots and bananas,” he explains.

“I started with a small bakery in 1983. My parents were farmers and I baked products from the farm,” Sina Gerard recalls. Once Sina Gerard’s company was placed on a sound footing, he diversified his portfolio by adding value to his products like; bread, tomato ketchup, honey, biscuits, Akandi mineral water, natural jam pastry and flours from soya, maize juices and wine. “The company production philosophy is premised on delivering the best products that can match the standards in some of the most sophisticated markets; the reason is because they are exported to other countries around East Africa and Europe,” he underlined.

Sina Gerard / Enterprise Urwibutso started producing doughnuts from flour as the first product and others followed.

“Agashya” is perhaps the best known amongst the family of drinks by the entrepreneur and among the first locally produced quality drink while the “Akabanga” chili oil a very popular item is sold into foreign markets.

“My products become popular and that enabled my businesses to grow”, he says one of the reasons is because of good leadership and deep reforms from the government which has given us the opportunity to boost made in Rwanda products those we today export to other countries, “he adds.

The Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB), agricultural experts and consultants have credited his products like bread, juices and ice cream as well as crisps as biofortified food crops with highly nutritious values for feeding children in order to fight chronic malnutrition especially stunting.

Sina Gerard is a true business visionary. One way of ascertaining such a claim is his firm belief in what education can do to the

sustainability of his rapidly growing business.

He believes that proper capacity building for his employees is a key driver of taking his growing empire to the next level besides that, to fight poverty and offering employment.

Currently, Sina Gerard / Enterprise Urwibutso directly employees about 300 people in its businesses plus other employed indirectly.

He is building an Educational Centre which is a modern academic institution that includes nursery, primary and secondary levels with facilities where students carry out practical experiments.

“I thought it worthwhile to support the school project since I saw the need to be responsible for my employees and their families. They work for my company and I make a profit out of their work.

The least I can do for them is to give back something to them. That is what I am doing with the school project. The schooling is free and the children can attend from nursery through primary school and high school for the needy students”.

He notes; “It benefits the children and parents but in a way it also benefits me, because, I would rather have educated staff than the unschooled.”

If anything, education is at the forefront of propelling Sina Gerard / Enterprise Urwibutso since offering extension services to farmers that enables them to produce more for less is a corner stone of the company’s success so far.

“If one looks at how farmers are producing now, the growth trend is just amazing. There is increased capacity over time that gives room for exports something we never thought would happen,” explains Sina Gerard.

But that is now very possible since we brought in experiences from other countries that have enabled us to achieve the best results.

This makes me very proud, he says, my dream is that Rwandan farmers should aspire to deliver the best quality just the way others are doing it in the first world countries.

Sina Gerard explains that the increased capacity of his contracted framers places them at a vantage position of looking beyond his company for sustaining their livelihoods. Sina Gerard / Enterprise Urwibutso has state of the art plant production capacity.

We can do this through education and training. For me I do that through experiential learning from other countries. This exposure enables our operations to be better over time.

At this year’s Expo 2018, Sina Gerard / Enterprise Urwibutso’s stand was among the dominate venues that attracted a good number of clients.