Smart Logistics founder Rose Mutuku discusses her company with a visiting MEDA group
Photos by Krista O’Brien
Business to benefit the community Kenyan woman works to raise farmers’ income Rose Mutuku has always wanted to give back to her community by helping farmers in her region. Growing up in a difficult area of Kenya where she had to walk more than six miles to fetch a litre of water, she knew well the struggles of small scale farmers in her region. Through the work of her company, Smart Logistics, and the training the firm has provided to her farmer suppliers, she has conThe Marketplace July August 2020
tributed to major improvements in their lives. “We’ve seen farmers move from grass hut homes, within three years, into very nice homes, because of the amount of money that we have paid,” she recalled during a presentation to a visiting MEDA group earlier this year. Early in her career, she worked for East African breweries as a supply chain manager. 8
While working there, sorghum became a raw material for the brewery. Rose felt sorghum could be grown in her region. She resigned from the brewery to promote sorghum within the community, starting Smart Logistics in 2009. “As I went into the market, I realized there are so much other things I can do.” She started introducing a number of other crops and com-
