Dutch animal nutrition giant Nutreco is forming two feed joint ventures in East Africa with Kenya-based Unga Group, it announced Wednesday.
One of the new ventures will focus on fish feed development in Kenya -- primarily tilapia and catfish -- while the other will focus on full-scale animal feed development in Uganda.
The Kenyan operation will produce fish feeds intended for East African markets at Unga’s existing fish feed plant in Nairobi and market them under the Skretting and Fugo brands.
The groups will invest significantly in increasing production capacity, Nutreco said.
Unga is one of Kenya's oldest companies, and the largest animal feed producer in East Africa.
Unga and Nutreco have been partners for 25 years, both with Trouw and Skretting feeds.
Nutreco-owned Skretting, the world's largest aquaculture feed producer, said in October 2019, it was eyeing East Africa as the next big frontier for production and sales on the African continent.
The optimism is founded in increasing numbers of aquaculture projects coming online, Nutreco Managing Director for Africa Rob Kiers told IntraFish at the time.
"We see good prospects in East Africa meaning Kenya, Uganda are doing quite well, especially around Lake Victoria," Kiers said. "That is potentially a market for us to add into the future."
The company is also planning to expand production capacity in Nigeria to 100,000 metric tons.
