The Opportunity

Jump to section

• Overview & contents
• i. Important Notice and Basis of Preparation
• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. The Opportunity
• 3. The Product Ladder
• 4. Operations and Certification
• 5. Market and Competitive Position
• 6. SWOT and Strategic Response
• 7. Financial Projections
• 8. Working Capital, Funding and the Balance Sheet
• 9. Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis
• 10. Risk Analysis
• 11. Regulatory and Compliance
• 12. Organisation
• 13. Implementation Roadmap
• 14. Key Performance Indicators
• 15. Investor Returns and Recommendation
• 16. Assumption Register
• A. Appendix A: Consolidated Financial Summary
• B. Appendix B: Volume, Allocation and Price Schedules
• C. Appendix C: Funding, Working Capital and Balance Sheet Schedules
• D. Appendix D: Risk Register
• E. Appendix E: Glossary

2.1 Why Kenya, and why these crops

The Kenyan highlands sit between 1 800 and 2 600 metres on the equator. The combination gives cool night temperatures, high light intensity and no meaningful winter, which allows continuous production of temperate vegetables across a calendar in which European field supply is absent for roughly half the year. That counter-seasonality, not cost, is the country’s durable advantage.

Fine beans, sugar snap peas and tenderstem broccoli are chosen for three reasons. They have high value density, which matters when freight is charged by weight. They are labour-intensive at harvest and grading, which suits a smallholder supply base and creates rural employment. And they are all suitable for prepared processing, which is where the margin in this plan sits.

Hass avocado is added from FY2028 as a deliberate counterweight. It ships by sea rather than air, which removes it from the airfreight exposure that dominates the vegetable lines. It is seasonal, which means the packhouse and management absorb a demand peak between March and September. And global supply is expanding faster than demand — Kenyan production alone is forecast to grow 4.8 per cent to approximately 727 000 tonnes in 2026 — so the plan assumes the price declines across the horizon from €1.85 to €1.68 a kilogram rather than rising.

2.2 The smallholder model and why it is chosen

The company could farm its own estate. It does not, for reasons that are commercial rather than developmental. Owning land converts a variable cost into a fixed one at exactly the point in the cycle when volumes are least predictable, ties up capital that the working capital cycle needs, and concentrates agronomic risk on a single soil and water position.

Contracting smallholders instead means the company carries agronomic risk through offtake commitments and input credit, but not land risk. It also means the supply base can expand or contract with demand. The cost is real and is budgeted: extension officers, input credit exposure, training and audit against group certification standards run at US$0.23m in FY2027 rising to US$1.07m by FY2031, the single largest operating expense line.

2.3 The market access position

The Economic Partnership Agreement between Kenya and the European Union provides duty-free, quota-free access for Kenyan horticultural produce. This removes a tariff question that once complicated the sector, and it is a genuine positive. It is not, however, a competitive advantage: it applies equally to every Kenyan exporter and to a number of competing origins under their own arrangements. Nothing in this plan relies on preferential access as a differentiator.