Kondiki dairy plant's wobbly leap to 21st Century
By Young Hoy Kim Kimaro
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If you visit the Kondiki Milk Processing Plant in Mwika on Mount Kilimanjaro today, you won’t find a trace of a wood burning stove nor a large cauldron in which 50 liter canisters of milk sit in bubbling, boiling water to be pasteurized.
What was once an empty hall with only a non-functioning cooler at the far end has now come alive with crisscrossing of pipes and heat exchangers, a packing machine and more. When the plant is in operation, the packing machine spits out a 250 mg packet of cultured milk every few seconds into a container waiting below.
The journey from wood burning stove to automated plant was as rocky as the unpaved, rain-washed terrain that one has to negotiate up the slope of Kilimanjaro to reach the plant.
The pastor of the parish, who oversaw the original plant, continued to supervise the plant after it had been modernized. He decided to keep the original staff and, above all, his right hand man, H.
H was a pleasant young man with a bright smile who had, over the years, won over the pastor’s confidence. H had some high school education, but no other noticeable skills. Still as the pastor’s trusted right hand he ran the day to day operation of the plant. Under him were plant workers from the neighborhood, all with no more than primary school educations.
When with New Zealand Rotary and government, the old bubbling cauldron of hot water was transformed into a modern, automated plant with pasteurizing, heating, and cooling machinery, the plant needed a dairy technologist who was trained in the running of such an operation. Since Tanzania did not and still does not have any dairy technology institute, the plant turned to neighboring Kenya. From there “J,” a graduate of Edgerton University was recruited.
J, a quiet slender man, lost no time in diversifying the plant’s output to include butter, yogurt, ghee and cheese, dairy products which have longer shelf life and higher added value than milk. The volume of milk processed at the plant rose from 350 liters per day to 800 and edged toward the 1,000 liter mark. But there was a problem.
J was excellent at “production” but he had no inclination or aptitude for marketing. The plant was slow to sell what it produced. Neither did he have the resourcefulness or interest to manage the “running” of the rest of the plant.
There was no store keeper to enforce a regimen on stock flows. There was no system of control. Products were pushed into the store whichever way. When the time came to retrieve the stock, whatever happened to be closest to the door was pulled out first. For perishables, that had serious consequences. This unconscious last-in-first-out practice passed over quantities of products, leaving them to spoil, and spoil they did.
Did anybody tell the workers? Of course, they did. But without a system of management and control, instructions were forgotten almost as soon as they were given. Plant staff, carried over from its cottage industry days, continued to do things the way they had always done. They did not understand why the fuss!
The milk plant had no bank account till then. Just a safe. H, the pastor’s right hand man, handled the marketing of the milk and the accounts. His front shirt pocket, the back pockets of his trousers, and the glove compartment of his pickup served as the plant’s bank from which money was withdrawn and deposited at will with minimal records. When he returned to the plant, he emptied his pockets and the glove compartment. No one asked any questions.
H freely sold milk on credit to large clients. Those clients typically dillydallied in paying up, constantly throwing the plant into cash crises. Payments to farmers for raw milk, supposedly to be made in full at the end of each month, slipped again and again. By the time automation was introduced, the plant was behind in payment by three full months! Milk supplier farmers were not happy.
An accountant was hired and a bank account opened. Twice the plant hired someone to manage marketing. But neither person had any idea how to go about getting the product known, to have the public test its product to get them hooked. The plant got nowhere.
Then unexpectedly the pastor was transferred to another region. The plant’s Board saw that as the right moment to bid H goodbye also.
One year into his employment, the Kenyan plant General Manager (GM) started to have health problems. The frequency of his trips to Kenya for treatment increased. In the middle of his second year, after one such trip, the plant received the shocking news that he had passed away, that he died of HIV/AIDS.
The plant was left with no one at the rudder. “But no sweat. We can manage the plant ourselves,” M, the self-proclaimed mechanic declared. “GM was away so much the past year and still we managed, did we not?”
Perhaps he felt that his star was on the rise. With the daring to make such a statement, he won himself the right at least to manage the plant. The Board simply had no choice. He at least had some knowledge of the mechanics, and none among the staff could challenge him in experience in milk processing.
Maybe it would have been different, had the plant been located in a township where educated and able labor is more readily available. In a remote rural village up on a mountain like Mwika, one has to make do with whatever is available.
So there is the plant, fully automated, and being run by a semi-trained mechanic with a motley crew of pre-industrial disposition. There is still much more to tell but I ran out space again.
Next month then.
The writer (youngkimaro2015@gmail.com) resides on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. She worked for the World Bank for nearly 30 years.