Wendy Group of Farms: A Journalist’s Dream Come True

“Welcome to my office,” he said.

A wooden seat under a banana tree in Rutara Village, Kiambu County. This is his office. He humbly offers me the wooden seat and takes a three legged stool for the interview. Before I finish introducing myself, his phone rings. A client is asking for 200 day old chicks. They negotiate a quick delivery-two weeks at most. I shoot my first question of the interview. Before I’m done, another client calls requesting for a visit to the farm. Immediately, I learn that this branch of Wendy Farms is a hive of activity. I quickly engage my patience gear and sit tight.

My interviewee’s mastery of the Queen’s language captivated me. This farmer was different. He was eloquent in his English (not that other farmers are not. This one was outstanding). I was curious. Thank heavens for introductions. I quickly learn that he is a household name that previously graced our screens on K24 hosting the program Najivunia. You guessed it. It is Caleb Karuga. He is the proprietor of Wendy Farms – a group of farms in Kikuyu, Nyeri and Nanyuki.

Caleb Karuga feeding his chicken

Wendy Farms is a rising poultry empire specializing in indigenous chicken. Wendy Farms has strategically positioned itself in various levels of the indigenous chicken value chain. The company supplies day old chicks, eggs, chicken for meat and breeding. It also supplies chicken manure to other farmers. In these farms, everything has monetary value. 

KARI improved indigenous chicken

Wendy Farms specializes in KARI improved indigenous chicken breed. A breed that is duo purpose- good for meat and eggs. The breed is also disease resistant and matures in 6-9 months.

A dream nurtured from childhood

Caleb Karuga grew up in the fertile highlands of Othaya by the riverside. He grew up watching his grandmother toil away in the day and serve farm fresh food in the evening. This spurred his interest in agriculture. He even studied the subject in high school. However, in his childhood, Karuga viewed agriculture as a punishment. It was a chore he had to do before going to play or before doing his homework. He constantly wondered where the money making aspect of this ‘punishment’ was.

Exposure through his career

In search for the business in agriculture, Karuga was inclined towards agribusiness stories in his six years as a journalist. Every day he told stories of people making a lump sum income from agriculture and other seemingly mundane trades. This reassured the young entrepreneur that agriculture was the trade for him.

“Through Najivunia program that I hosted on K24, I got to interact with many people in the agricultural value chain. I got exposed to the business arm of agriculture. Not subsistence farming; serious agriculture that takes into account economies of scale to break even,” avers Karuga.

Once an entrepreneur always an entrepreneur

Caleb Karuga has always had knack for business. While pursuing a degree in IT at the university, he registered his first company that dealt in video production. That company landed him his lucrative journalism career. As a practicing journalist, Karuga ran a car hire business on the side, despite the demanding nature of his job. He later sold one of his cars from the car hire business to venture into agribusiness.

Three chicken: The birth of Wendy Farms Empire

The capital that Karuga got from his car hire business financed the leasing of a piece of land in Kikuyu and the construction of pig sheds on the farm. Having started with pig business in 2010, Karuga turned to poultry farming after the poultry business plummeted in 2011.

“I started with three indigenous chicken that I bought from Tala in Machakos County in 2011. I would drive 30 Kilometres from Nairobi every day to check on my three chicken. Two hens and a cock. It took five months for me to see the first egg. I was excited on this small achievement but I learnt key lesson: I would need a lot of patience to see results as a farmer,” recalls Karuga.

Strawberry beds on Wendy Farms

Karuga scaled up his three chicken to 1500 indigenous chicken on his one farm in Kikuyu and numerous more in his other farms in Nyeri and Nanyuki. A shy estimate of his monthly income from his flagship indigenous chicken business is about Ksh 600,000 per month. Coupled with profit from other investments such as strawberry and quail farming, Karuga makes roughly Ksh 800,000 in total.

Learning through experience

The aphorism that goes, experience is the best teacher, holds true in agriculture. Any successful business man in agriculture will quote that saying every so often. Karuga is no different. He has grown in the past four years to make a shy estimate of Ksh 800,000 per month as a farmer. However, his journey has not been a rosy one. He got to this point through painful lessons of the dos and don’ts of agribusiness.

After realising that pork business was not working for him, Karuga dived hard for poultry business. He invested Ksh 50,000 in 500 day old chicks only to lose 100 of them in the first month. He had to sell another 200 to mitigate losses.

He also recalls running into huge losses before discovering the KARI improved indigenous chicken breed. He was previously buying indigenous chicks from other farmers who were not vaccinating their chicken. Most farmers argue that indigenous chicken are hardy birds that are immune to disease. This misconception drove Karuga’s investment to the ground.

However, the 31 year old farmer took lessons from his losses and got wiser with each challenge. He says that passion and resilience has grown his business from three chicken to an empire. He hopes that Wendy Farms will be the brand of choice for indigenous chicken in East and Central Africa in the next five years.e has come