Some 65km from the Kisumu-Bondo highway sits a vibrant market centre named Akala, where buyers and sellers usually meet every week to trade various goods including farm produce like fruits, vegetables and livestock.It is at this market where a group of farmers under the name Morgem Enterprise Development Organisation have located their cooking oil processing plant.Samuel Ouma, the project leader is on site supervising the processing, branding and packaging of the oil.“We process three kinds of oils, from sesame, sunflower and candlenut (Aleurites moluccanus). The oils are pure and natural with no fortification for cooking, salad dressing and cosmetic formulation,” says Ouma. The group buys sunflower seeds at Sh40 per kilo and sesame (simsim) seeds at Sh90 per kilo from contracted farmers in the region.For the candlenuts, also known as candleberry, they buy a 20 litre bucket at Sh100 from residents.
“Candlenuts look like macadamia. Most people in the region have the candlenut trees which grow on their own, in their compounds for shade not knowing their huge benefits,” says Ouma.Once they collect the seeds, they dry them thoroughly until the moisture content is below one per cent. They are then winnowed to remove impurities before milling begins.“We handle the processing of the three oils differently. This way, we don’t end up mixing,” says Monica Anyango, the group’s oil quality controller.For sunflower oil, once the cake is dry, it is milled in a manual extractor machine. The crude oil is then collected from one end of the machine while the residue on the other.
Candlenuts that the group uses to manufacture cooking oil. Photo www.nation.co.ke