Clinton Obura — transcript

Samaking Foods

This transcript is generated automatically by YouTube and has not been checked by a person. It misspells names and mishears words, particularly around Kenyan English and company names, so read it as a guide to the conversation rather than a quotable record. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment.

0:05 Greetings ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 52 of the African Do podcast. Today we're privileged to have with us a young man called Clinton Auba, CEO and founder of Summer King Foods Limited. Clinton, welcome to the African podcast.
Thank you very much. So Clinton um first let me confess that I know you prior to this podcast recording but Clinton and um before you tell us about your background
you had arrived
as per um the typical African parent scenario. Yeah. You're working for a big multinational Google. Yeah.
You've made it.
Yeah.
And then you decide that you're living that life too selfish. Yeah,
explain to me how that conversation went on the home front and then you can tell us a bit about yourself and where you started.

1:00
That's a good question. Um, I think for me it's that neverending pursuit of purpose,
right? Something deeper and more meaning and I don't think even now I have found it.
Right.
So I think um I'm a big believer in people reinventing themselves every few years. I think the days of the career path are far behind us. every five to six years you need to find like a new path. So I think my tech path um so my back I studied computer science a couple of tech companies then at Google I was like no I feel an emptiness this is not what I I was meant to do. So I just decided to look for something else and serendipity got me to fish.
And what were you doing at Google at the time of making this decision?

1:40
Um at the time so my last role you mean?
Yes.
Um at the time I was working within um Google cloud so where like all of this AI stuff is coming from and all of that. So working on the commercial um and strategy team, working with some of their biggest clients who try to adopt um cloud technologies. So really at the forefront of of technology at the time.
How did that choice go down on the home front? Yeah.
Yeah. With your parents, for example.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's a good question. Um cuz I think I when I when I got to the point where I made the decision, I think one of the things that I realized was at the end of the day, this path is mine, right? regardless of other people having like their opinions about this path. This path this path was a personal one. So I just I really just actually funny thing so I was in Nigeria when I made I made the decision

2:32
I had volunteered for this Google for startups where Google work with startups founders across Africa. I was volunteering for that and then during this event I was just like my god this is what I I'm on the wrong side of this table. I should be on on the other side not this side. Yeah,
I went back to Dublin. At the time I was working for Google in Dublin in Ireland and on a whim really on a limb I just sent in my resignation and I think for most of these things the more you overthink it the longer it takes. Sometimes just making a decision on a limb is probably like the best.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you you then step down from Google.
Yeah.
And uh
maybe walk us through how did you settle on fish?

3:12
Yeah.
Yeah. Upbringing. You grew up by the lake.
Yeah. Um so what made you say okay fish is what I want to to pursue?
Yeah yeah
that's an interesting one. So after after after quitting Google in Ireland I came back to Kenya in 2019. So actually before starting summer king I worked at Uber Uber Eats um helping launch Uber Eats and growing that um as head of growth and sales. Then I moved on to another um health tech startup called Elephant Healthcare which was building software for primary care facilities. Um then I quit Elephant Healthcare. At that point I was like okay I need to do something something different. I worked on a fintech actually for about 6 to 8 months that never saw like the light of day. Um different story altogether. Then during sort of like my point of like exploration um I was like okay what do I want to do? I think some things were very clear for me. I think one was I wanted to work in an industry or space that could create like a lot of employment. So from a social angle that

4:14 was one.
And when you think about that you really just arrive at food and agriculture. Food and agriculture in Africa, in Kenya is such a big contributor not just to GDP but to jobs, right?
So then I looked at food and a I was like what do I want to do?
And I was just like dude your unfair advantage is fish,
right? You were born in Homo Bay. You a little guy from Homo Bay. Why don't you look at fish? So I start just out of curiosity, I started looking at um the fish. Well, first I started looking at protein more generally, all types of meat. Then I I arrived at fish and chicken. I thought white meat was very interesting.
And the more I looked at fish, the more I got hooked and as they say, the rest is history.

4:56
Yeah.
Before we get into now the nuts and bolts of summer king, let's go back to you've just said you were born and raised in Homabi.
Yeah. And one of the things that is happening in Kenya which I think is a very positive thing.
Yeah.
Um
I would say post the promalgation of [clears throat] the new constitution
we are now seeing
opportunity being
more equal than it has ever been
in my lifetime. Yeah. And I'm older than you. So in your lifetime too.
Yeah. Um I had um Ivonne Mos from MMA Renewables Energy on the podcast and she
was born and raised in Ki.
Yeah.
And came and is now starting and running a a um a renewable energy company and is actually thriving. Yeah.

5:46
So let's let's speak about your early days in in and how your experience being born and raised in in in Homer Bay.
Yeah. how that your path
um into Nairobi school and all that
and how that informed your view on fish fishing and what did you see in the ecosystem there?
Yeah, that's a really good question. So actually yeah it's really interesting cuz my family moved around like quite a bit um because my my my dad's nature of work just required us to move around like quite a bit. Yeah. So while I was born in Homa Bay, I we didn't stay in Homa Bay for a while for a long time. I lived in Mombasa. I lived in Ki and then I think at some point my dad was like, "Okay, I need some stability for these

6:32 guys. I'm moving around a lot. I want them to be stable." So we settled down um in Kisumu.
Okay.
So I grew up in um I grew up in Kisumu, went to school in Kisumu, but by standard six, I went to school in Western. I finished off primary
in um in western somewhere called Bali a school called Bal Shalom.
So I did my I did my KCP there. Then results came out like hey you need to go to um Nairobi school. Uh it was very funny now looking back cuz my dad really wanted me to go to Maseno.
Yes.
Right. He wanted me to be like closer to home and all. So there was like a big sort of like disagreement. I was like no
I'm going to
I've been called. I'm going
I've been called. Yeah. Exactly. Then came to Nairobi school. So really that was sort of like my first time in Nairobi right so this was what I was maybe 13 14 um thereabouts so schooled in u did Nairobi school so that was really interesting

7:25
uh being exposed to so like different people from all over the country and all of that different sort of like upbringing so that was really fascinating and then also from my uni I went to Kabarak okay in in Nakuru
so I think one thing that I really appreciate um from my parents also like like mostly like my dad is that he's just not afraid to send people like to different type of places and different cultures and all
experience them.
Exactly. To experience them. Right. So I think that was like a looking back uh the sum of the parts. I think that's a big sort of like influence on me. the different sort of like cultures that I was exposed to, not just sort of like um growing up in Homab, then having to leave Kissi, Mombasa, settling down in Kisumu, then have coming to Nairobi, going to Kabarak for uni. So, yeah, it was just like all over the place. I'm

8:18 truly a son of the soil.
Excellent.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Good. Now, let's come to summer king. You've left Google. You've spent a couple of months uh dabbling in some startups, I'm sure, to make ends meet and pay the bills and then you now settle fish is your unfair advantage by by upbringing and and knowledge of the ecosystem. Where do you go from there?
Yeah, that was really it was a very uh fascinating um period. I think I was actually luckier than most. Right. So one of my um one of my anchor investors is a company called Delta 40 venture studio which is a very interesting sort of like organization. So it's both a venture capital investor but also like a venture studio meaning that internally they also have the capability to build their own companies from scratch right

9:06
so at the time as as one does if you're exploring like maybe this is advice to anyone trying to do like something new is talk to a lot of people
right so I remember at the time I'm like okay I want to do fish protein I'm not really sure so I'm literally just trying to talk to as many people as possible so I'm just putting my name out there putting my name out Yeah, I'm getting advice from people from different fronts. So, people who are operators, people who are investors and all of that. So, at some point, someone is like, "Hey, have you heard of there's this lady called Lindsay Handler from Delta 40?" I'm like, "What is Delta 40?" They're like, "Oh, there this venture studio thing. They're trying to help entrepreneurs come up. Uh people who are building companies for the for the first time."

9:46
So, the first time I dismissed it. Then I heard it from a second person. Then I had it from a third person. I'm like, "Okay,
I need to meet this Lindsay." Okay.
Right. So Lindsay and I connect and Lindsay is like, "Hey, I'm building this venture studio and I'm telling her I'm working on this fish thing." I pitched it to her. She was like, "Okay, this is interesting. Um, for me to go to to go bigger on this or to invest, I need to see A, B, C, and D." And most of it was like really more like market research and just um a better understanding of the problem cuz that's fundamentally where all company good companies start from. True.
You really need to understand your problem. It has to be like a big enough problem. So I did that trying to understand my problem came back to Lindsay. Lindsay was like I like it.

10:28
What was the problem?
Um so at the yeah that's a really good question. So a couple of things right. So one uh broadly speaking if you look at Kenya and most of Africa so Kenya has one of the lowest per capita fish consumption rates. So your average Kenyan is eating 4.7 kg of fish a year.
Okay.
Right. If you're in Nairobi you're probably saying no but you're the one overindexing. everyone else is not eating a lot of a lot of fish. The Africa average is 10.
Now if you're to just to contextualize for the viewer
4.7 you're saying is low.
Yeah.
So what is high when when in globally when you say people are large consumers of fish?
Yeah.
What are they eating per year?
So the Africa average is 10.

11:12
The world average is 20.
20 kilos a year.
20 kilos. Africa average is 10.
10. So Kenya is not doing well. less than half of African of the Africa of the African average right so that was one the second thing is like broadly speaking as well there's a massive protein deficiency so if you just take a step up it's not just a fish problem
it's a protein problem I mean chicken 50% of eggs are being imported 40% of chicken meat is being imported look at beef beef what people don't know is a lot of our cattle doesn't actually come from Kenya comes from northern from Ethiopia from Somalia
and like all of Right. So I was like okay this is very fascinating right but then you try to understand okay why then okay sour there's a there's a deficit obviously in any value chain you try to take like a holistic like approach try to understand the production side try to understand the market side so what was fascinating for us was like on the market side there was a lot more demand than there was supply yes

12:12
right in fact if you look at like Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Kenya fisheries they estimate that in Kenya we have a deficit of about 200,000 metric tons of fish a year. Okay.
So, this is just demand that is not being that's not being met. Okay.
Then you look at the production side like historically most fish came from Lake Victoria.
Yes.
Right. And back in the '9s when this business was booming and all of that, the supply was not an issue. It was coming from Lake Victoria. But what has happened is basically over fishing on Lake Victoria. Also, fun fact, what most people don't know is Kenya only has 6% of Lake Victoria.
Agreed. The biggest chunk of Lake Victoria is actually in Uganda and in Tanzania, right? So I always say we just overfished our small share of the our small share of the lake. Eventually the fish figured it out. If you're hanging out on the Kenyan side, you're going to die. Go and hang out. Go and hang out. Go [laughter] and hang out somewhere somewhere else, right?

13:05
Further in water.
Further in water. Hang out in Uganda, Tanzania. Your mortality rates will be will be more favorable, right? So basically we have overfished the lake. there's no more fish coming out of the coming out of the lake.
Then you ask yourself then if there's no more wild catch, what do we need to do? Oh, now we need to farm fish, right? So now on the fish farming side, you try to understand what's the context behind that. What are the different production systems? So for example, in Kenya, people produce fish mainly through two methods.
One is cages where they put a cage in Lake Victoria and then you put fish under a net. It's a highly productive system of production.
Yes. And then the second one is ponds where you just dig a hole, put your fish and then you raise them over a period of time. But that also has its own challenges and issues. But the key thing to note is that the cages are the most productive system of of producing

13:57
of producing fish. But now if you think about it from like um from a community perspective, the people who know how the fish business are the people who are fishing before.
So a lot of people are like why aren't those guys getting into fish farming?
Yes. Right? But fundamentally it's a very different business. They are not the same thing at all completely.
So from a mindset perspective, the easiest example I can give is if you're a fisherman, you leave your home way early in the morning. So most fishermanmen gish maybe at 10:00 at night all the way to like 4:00 a.m. in the morning. He has something
sells it. He sleeps. He wakes up and that's just his cycle of the day. Fish farming a production cycle for a good farmer

14:42
is 6 to 7 months.
Mhm.
That's a good farmer.
If you're not a good farmer, it's like 9 to 12 months.
Mhm.
That's a fundamentally different business. And this is a fish that you're feeding every single day. Every single day. Every single day. So one of the things that we've seen in aquaculture, which is the farming of fish in Kenya, is that a lot of the players getting into aquaculture are more corporate type entities, right? cuz they are very well organized, well financed, thinking about their cash flows and all of that. They're thinking about how many cages do you want to put in the water. But for like your average farmer who really has the cash flow to feed something for 9 months,

15:21
then expect sort of like some outcome like at the end, it doesn't really lend itself well to sort of like your small holder farmer type of of person. Yeah. So that's sort of like a brief context.
So you then defined those are the problems that you define. Exactly.
So where do you go on?
Exactly. So then when you once you define those problems across the value chain, you sort of like ask yourself
what is the what is my entry point?
What is my wedge? Right. And when you're typically looking for your wedge, you're looking for like the least effort but most bang for your buck like the most efficient way to go get into the the value chain. And I think for me also because of maybe my commercial sort of like background um I'm always my bias is always where the money is. I want to start with like where the money is and that's where the the market

16:08
cuz if you think about any agricultural value chain the person paying everyone is the customer
if that customer at the end doesn't buy money doesn't trickle down
into the value chain. So I decided quite early on let's start on the market on the market side let's understand this like a bit
a bit better
and an example some of our earlier interesting pilots was like okay just trying to understand how do Kenyans eat fish relative to other types of animal proteins how do they buy how do they sell how do they buy and consume fish and so our earlier sort of like pilots were like set up a shop selling fish because there's only so much you can learn from surveys and trying to ask people you learn so much more by boots on the ground, right?

16:54
So, we set up a shop um on Gong Road, our first sort of like direct consumer shop.
And the thesis were not complicated. It was just like let's sell fish and let's see what we can learn by selling fish to consu to consumers.
Who who who is funding this pilot? Because you're not you're not you're not you're not running a charity. You say you cash. Yeah. Who's funding you to do this research and to find this question?
That's a really good question. So by this time my one of again one of my anchor investors and one of the people who have backed me like to this day two years later. So Delta 40 venture studio.
So by this time Delta 40 were like after after giving them all this context

17:37
Delta 40 were like dude
you're on to something.
You're the guy
right? We're going to take a bet on you. Um, and also fundamentally I think for for Lindsay who is the founder of Delta 40, she was like, "You know what? I don't get fish, but I trust you. I trust you to figure it out." Okay.
Right. And I think fundamentally when you're when you're backing sort of like early businesses and early founders, there's no business to back if you're just being
You're backing a person.
You're backing a person, an individual.
Yes.
So, she took a chance on me. Yes.
She said, "I'm going to write you a check to do like a couple of these pilots,
and then the more you validate, the more I'm going to I'm going to sort of like increase sort of like that that check size."

18:15
I think initially probably our first check was like um $100,000, but sort of like trenched was like do this pilot with this and then if
it works with this
with this and all of that, right? So, I was like, "Okay, I don't want to complicate this. Let's open this shop in Gong Road. let's start selling fish to consumers and just learn about sort of like consumers, right? And that was really fascinating, right? So, a couple of the interesting insights we found out um one is your average Kenyan, they buy fried fish.
They don't buy fresh fish.
Agreed.
Right. Um number two, mama samakis are the main way Kenyans buy fish, right? Kenyans don't buy fish. As much as people would think, oh, supermarkets, they buy some fillet here and there. No,

19:00
mama and mama are the number one way that people consumers buy fish. And then the third one that was really interesting for us to also see was people don't know how to cook fish.
Okay.
Right. So part of the reason why they buy fried fish because it's already been kind of halfway cooked, right? And then number two is a lot of people will just say like, "What do I do with this? Okay, if you give me fresh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do with this?" So it was like a fundamentally interesting question because people don't ask those question about chicken.
They don't know what to do with chicken. They don't ask that about beef
about good.
Exactly. They know what to do with them. But with fish

19:40
that was like a very interesting thing. Right. And that's why for example you'd meet a lot of Kenyans who tell you me I only eat fish in mamole.
Yes.
I only eat fish in big fish. Right. In a restaurant, right? I don't take it back. I don't take it back home because I don't know what to do
with it
with it. Right. So that was very interesting. But also remember that our initial pilot, we were not trying to be a restaurant. We were just trying to be a better mama samaki.
So the we were not going to People would ask us, oh do you have ugali? Oh, can you wet fry it? We like no we are a mama samaki.
You either buy fresh or you buy fried and that is it. And that was like the pilot.

20:21
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. you you have a very strong bi bias towards data.
Yeah.
Yeah. Which is uh not very common.
Yeah.
So tell us that thinking in the sense that in the very early stage
of your business
you have uh focused on learning. Yeah.
You're like okay I'll pilot this. I'll try this. I just want to open a shop and learn this. Where does that come from? Um that's a good question. I think one is probably my experience in tech.
Yes.
So coming from a tech background, having worked in like tech companies, obviously tech data datadriven decisioning was just something that was so ingrained in how you think and how you drive outcomes, right? So I think um looking at my journey now like in food and agriculture, I think that's the feedback I get a lot. People are like whenever you talk to Clinton about something the first thing is a spreadsheet exercise

21:21 like does the math
math
make sense does it math before we actually start sort of like having sort of like more conversations and I think that's how we approach the business as well is like what does the data say however I would also nuance that the nuance around that as well is
let's also not forget to be human beings
because I think one of the things that I look back at some of the some of the things that I'm I don't think are going well in the world is we are so datadriven now we have now also forgotten to be human beings right
we have forgotten that people you can have a hunch
I can see that you can have a hunch or a gut feel
a gut feel that there's no data whatsoever

22:02
to back or you can be pioneering and there's no fair enough I can see that
so I always say data driven to a point
right there's also trust the human beings trust the people who are actually operating every day and trust your gut also. Yeah. So, a mix of data and also your gut.
I'll add something that I'm observing with you as we talk.
Yeah.
Is um which I think is a very interesting trait.
Yeah.
Is that you're comfortable with not knowing.
Yeah.
And I find that to be a real challenge we have to overcome on the African continent.
Yeah.
They we need to be more comfortable with not knowing.
Yeah. As long as you have a formula to learn.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And also failure.

22:48
Yes.
Yeah.
So that combination of failing and not knowing because failure is um someone once told me that if you're not failing,
it means you're only doing something tried and tested. That means you're not venturing into new
territory or or exploring new opportunities.
So you pilot, you answer your questions, you're selling fresh and fried.
How does the journey progress?
Yeah. And then so that's a really good question. So then at this point now we are after the pilot uh period which was probably this is maybe like the tail end of like 23 into 24 2023 into 24 right so at that point then you're now we're now asking ourselves what is the business we're building like what are we doing okay we have piloted we understand the value chain we understand where value is and all of that then we're asking ourel

23:38 what kind of business are we are we are we building so that during that period is when we came up with our mission at at Summer King, right? And the mission is quite simple. It is making fish the number one protein on African plates
while improving livelihoods for fish farmers and fisher folk,
right? So, it was it was the pilot period really crystallized
what problem we wanted to work on and it was just to make fish the number one protein on African plates and then improve incomes for fish farmers and fisher folk. So now after the pilot, we're like, "Okay, we're ready. We're incorporating the company. We're now doing this thing like formally and going at it. Right? So now the question becomes okay if your mission is make fish the number one production of African plates and improve livelihoods

24:23 of fish farmers and fisher folk that essentially means you have sort of like two businesses really in one, right?
The first one is sort of like this distribution business where your key outcome is more fish in African plates. M
then the first business is how do you improve incomes for fishermen and fisher folk and and so you have to understand their context. So you have to buy off their product but also at the same time you have to increase their productivity over time so that after 2 years of working with a farmer they should feel like their business has grown and they should not feel like they're just at the same place where they were 2 years after working after working with you. So now we are like let's go full on. So we're like, okay, this retail model is interesting. Let's open a couple of more shops. The other thing with business is um sometimes pilots can be biased, right? So you can have you can open a shop on Gong Road that does very well,

25:16
but that has nothing to do with your business. It's more around Gong Road as a location. So it [laughter] has nothing to do with your business being good, right? And the way you sort of like validate that is by opening in other places to see what kind of experience you open.
So the second one was Kimbu
Kamburod
Kimburur road right
and Kimburur was a very was a very deliberate experiment um as well. So typically when we sort of like were opening our retail shops we had sort of like had a thesis. So the thesis was look for population density and then look for disposable income.
Okay.
Right. So population density disposable income Kiamu around four ways it fits that quite well right but the reason also why we are going into Kiamu is one of the things we observed is Kenya largely is split into two there's people who have a fish eating culture and people who do not have a fish eating culture so Kiamu was this experiment around okay

26:13
this subsection of of the of the of the country might not have a fish eating culture but the experiment here is what kind of interventions does it take to drive sort of like uptake and more consumption of
fish
and more consumption um of fish. So we opened up um in Kiamu similar model uh very no actually similar because in in Gong road we're like next to greenhouse mall
and that's both sort of like uh office type of folks versus also people who are living there. So it's a good mix of office and residential but Kiamu was fully
mostly now residential. So now you like how do you market to someone in their home, right? Um so that was a very different experience from um from Gong Road and to be honest we struggled. We really struggled um in Kiamur road but then at the same time what was also interesting for us is we were also looking at other channels apart from direct consumer.

27:10
Okay.
So this is the point where we s started looking at oh what other channels can we use to push this fish. Remember on the other hand we have all these farmers we're working with. They're like, "Clinton, we want you to push volumes. Why aren't you buying volumes?" So, for context, like our shop in Kamburod was it can sell about 700 kgs of fish a month, right? And that's because it's like you buy two pieces here, three pieces here, four pieces here. So, we still felt like the volumes we needed to make this business viable.
Gong Road selling what?
No, that's in Gong Road. Sorry. I was I was talking about 700 kg and Kimbo maybe was doing about 300 350 kgs. But then at the time if you think about the economics of this business

27:50
when you bring fish from you're bringing fish in a 5 truck
yes
right so really the economics is like five tons daily
yes
is really the kind of volume you need to be moving for you to make a difference to those farmers
agreed
on the other side so at this point I'm like guys we need to move volumes so apart from this retail so we sort of like divided the team up we were like okay a subsection of the team is going to focus on retail retail
then the rest of the team the other side of the team let's focus on other channels that are not
retail so we start looking into that so that was the first like foray into B2B or there are B2B buyers kumbbe there are people who are buy fish in bulk so we have a couple of B2B customers at the moment and they come in all shapes and sizes so they could be a fish processor there's just someone who receives fish they process they export or they maybe resell to a bigger buyer locally maybe someone like Farmer's Choice

28:45
or some something of the sort. Then the other thing that was really interesting for us was this mama samaki sort of like layer, right? Cuz I think what we had observed by then is about 84% of all fish sold in urban and per urban Kenya is sold through mamasakis.
Okay.
So really we realized if you're not selling in to mamasakis there's 84% of the market that you're completely
talking to
talking to. So then we set up our shop in Kangar.
Okay.
So that's a different experiment. So that's an experiment to sell to mama samakis and from day one we are mind blown
because while road is doing 700 kgs of fish in a month kangar is doing 700 kg of fish in a day.
Wow.
Right. So the quantums are just

29:32
and this is [clears throat] the mama samaki base
and this is the mamasak.
So a mama samaki on average would come and take what on a daily basis. Um so also within mamasaki there's a continuum of them right but your average median one is about 20 25 kgs like there about but you have your super mamasakis who can do like 200 kgs
a day
like 250 kgs
um a day they're there right and then you also have your restaurants your small restaurants like here and there but by far and large the volume mover
is the mamasaki okay
right but as you can imagine it's a completely different business selling to mamasakis cuz Now that's more wholesale type of business. It's not retail anymore. So your margins are tighter but the volumes are higher. Right? And I think also when I think about uh businesses in Kenya you I always say largely speaking you're you're building either two types of businesses. High volume low margin

30:29
or like low volume like higher margin. So choose your poison. Just choose your poison.
Agreed. So then we we were like okay now we're taking volumes and then our farmers are now happy. The farmers are like serious now [clears throat] people with B2B customers you find B2B customers who can even buy five tons of fish
seven tons of fish like at a go
but then with different types of customers they introduce different challenges
to your structure right so with for example retail customers the biggest challenge is delivery operations
because delivery was a big value proposition of our offering ing like on retail and delivery operations is is is painful. It's not easy. Right?
The second thing is quality assurance and quality control.

31:19
The ability to continually every single time deliver the same experience cuz that's like the promise you make as a company, right? When you receive a farmer's choice,
there's a consistent feeling and taste that you're looking for in that.
Agreed. And that quality assurance and quality control in retail was a really big challenge um for us, right? And then on the B2B side, now it's working capital,
right? Cuz you you deliver fish to a guy, a guy is like 30 days.
Mhm.
Right. 30 days becomes 6 weeks.
6 weeks becomes 2 months, right? So working capital becomes a massive constraint on the on the B2B side. So you find now you're sort of like trying to solve for all of these sort of like channel specific problems. So in retail you're solving a different problem in B2B you're solving a different problems for mama samakis as well. Just a bit about mas a little bit more about mamasakis. So mama Samakis you're like okay uh our approach always as a company

32:19 is when we have like a new customer segment we forget we try to forget about the product we are selling for a moment and we just try to understand the life of this customer and what are their challenges absent of our product
so we just day in the life of mama samaki like what's your problem mama samaki is like yo I have to wake up at 3:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m. to go mama kasamaki start tried calling you at 3 to 4:00 a.m. to start asking you, do you have fish or if you don't have fish, I need to go to Gikoma.
So, her day starts at 3 4:00 a.m. So, that consistently consistency of supply and just knowing every day you're going to be present is supremely important, right? Number two, the more you start knowing them, you're like, "Okay, what are your inputs into your business?" Apart from fish, what are the inputs do you do you buy? She's like, "Oh, I buy cooking oil." Okay. Where do you buy cooking oil? I buy at such and such a

33:15 place. At what price? You go and check it out. You're like, "Okay, interesting. Interesting." Then the oil you use to cook your samaki. Do you recycle it? They're like, "No." So, what do you do with this? She's like, "I can't I just use it until
I add the fresh one. I keep adding
I just keep adding the fresh one. I keep adding the fresh one." So me in my head I'm like yo this is sort of like a consumer health concern
for the consumers and I think you largely speaking you're talking about casino gens and all of that. These are sort of like the kinds of places where this is this is coming from. So we sort of like trying to solve this problems for her. So one she's like I need cooking oil. So currently in our Kangar shop we're doing an experiment right now with copper oil.

34:01
Yes.
Um copper oil refineries where we basically have an oil ATM.
Mhm. M
they've set up an oil ATM in a wholesale shop selling to mama samakis.
So your mama samaki comes in the morning to buy fish.
She also buys cooking oil.
So sak becomes like a one-stop shop. She can show up and get everything she needs from from there.
The second bit as well we started realizing there are people who are recycling used oil.
Mhm.
And this was like a very recent sort of like finding like for us because apparently the used oil is used in like biodiesel and and sort of like stuff like that. So in our next iteration of that we when a mama samaki shows up in the morning you want her to show up with the used oil

34:40
we buy it from her then she uses the whatever the value credit her account
you sell her fresh oil and fish
fresh oil from copper in the in the what in the dispenser also the beauty of the dispenser there's no packaging
okay
so just by the virtue of no packaging the cost per unit
is also lower
so the mama comes with her own container every morning to pick up the to pick up the oil. The next thing is credit, right? These mama samakis, if you're just observant of them in the morning when they're buying, she's literally taking a feliza loan.
Yes.
In the morning to buy the
I was just about to bring that up.
Yeah. She's buying she's buying using like fiza or like some muary or some exorbitant loan

35:24
and some of these facilities they're taking are atrocious.
Yes. when you actually do like the annual payment rate, we've done the math. Some can go as high as 300% on an annual basis,
right? So, we like credit is clearly an issue. She has a cash crunch and she'll buy in the morning, by evening she has sold, she's repaid. So, it's like a continuous
but it's very expensive money
very very expensive expensive money. So, we're trying to ask ourselves how do we bundle the thing all the things that a mama samaki needs. So that summer king is her one-stop shop. So she gets the fish at a good price. Number two, she gets oil. Number two, she can also access credit. Right? And also our approach is

36:09
she needs to access all these things at a good and sustainable price. But it doesn't mean that we have to do all of these things ourselves, right? Cuz I think the other bit that sometimes companies can get wrong is doing too much too soon. So for example, I'm telling you about the oil experiment. I'm telling you we're doing with it copper oil. We're not doing it directly.
There's a credit experiment at the moment we're doing with some a fintech um not allowed to talk about it yet. But also with them we're doing like a pilot like with them. So also sometimes you can grow through partnerships. You don't have to do it like yourself
because to be honest oil refining is a completely different business.

36:45
Agreed.
Giving credit is a completely different
business. So for us it's been just very interesting and now we're at a point where now we are we have our our model is established and for us going into 2026 and into the future we're leaning more into selling to mamasakis wholesale to mamasaki is a big priority number two on B2B and wholesale and actually on the retail front we're stepping back because we are realizing that what we want is a high volume business especially to help our farmers
on the other side. Okay. Yeah,
let's go back a bit and we've not talked about the farmers.
So, let's go back. We've talked about the business from the front, who you're selling to. Let's talk about the farmers.

37:27
How was your initial interaction with them and what insights and impact have you seen?
Yeah.
Yeah,
that's a good question. So, we work with farmers sort of like across um so primarily we deal in tilapia.
Okay.
Right. So, you have to ask yourself where does most tilapia come from? So mostia come comes from talking about bay talking about sa migori you're talking about busy sort of like the lake belt right from the lake right so that's where tilapia comes from wild catch but also the farmers are also located around that area right actually Kenya largely speaking as a country I think about 86% of all fish that we eat comes from lake Victoria
yes
not from the Indian Ocean so fun fact 86% comes from Lake Victoria So if you're talking about fish and dealing with fish farmers, fish business, the place where you need to be is in that lake belt. That's where all the farmers are, right?

38:25
So quite early on we're like trying to understand sort of like their context and all of that. Um initially for example, we were sourcing from both wild catch and also sourcing from fish farmers. Very quickly we realized it's really hard to work with wild catch um fishermen. And the biggest issue is just quality control and quality assurance, right? consistency
because if yeah uh Mr. Modachi who is a fisherman shows up to me in the morning at 8. He brings the fish to me. Then I ask you, "What time did you fish this fish?" You know, I can only take your word for it. There's no assurance to me that what you're saying is true.
But on this other side to my customer, I am making asurances and promises. So it became really difficult.

39:05
So we then decided, you know what, let's just focus on farmers for now.
Also, as an early business, one of the you just have to be ruthless with focus, right? cuz the more things you do, they split your focus and resources. So, we said this wild cash thing is going to really confuse us and pull us in a different direction. Not to say we can't come back to it later, but for now we're just going to focus on farmers. So then you spend time with farmers. You're trying to understand what are the different strata of farmers. You have your large scale farmers, the victory farms of this world um who are a large probably the biggest producer of fish um
in the country. I think probably doing about 15,000 tons of fish a year. So large scale and there's very few large scale probably three or four people in what you would call large scale, right? Then you have like your medium scale which are people I would say are doing like um 3,000 to like 6 7,000 tons like a year. Also them not too many probably 10 people in that category. Then you just have now the long tail

40:08
the ranking file. Yeah. of so like small um small holders. So then you're trying to understand their their context of production. What are their inputs? So inputs we have fingerlings. So fingerlings are the baby fish essentially. Then you have feed. So fish fingerlings and feed. They put it into a cage or a pond. Then basically you feed the fish over the period of of um of of growth. Yeah.
And then you harvest the fish, right? Then you're now trying to understand okay what about fingerlings? Is the quality of fingerlings right? a big issue. Right. So, fingerlings or I I'll tell you some really fun stories. So, fingerlings when they're really young, they look like tadpoles.
Yes. [laughter]

40:48
Right. They look like tadpoles. There's stories of farmers who have been sold tadpoles.
Yeah. Yeah.
Instead of fingerlings.
They grow into frogs.
Then they grow into [laughter] they grow into frogs. That's right. Um, number two, the other thing as well is like in in fish farming,
you whenever you're putting your fish in a production system, whether it's a cage or a pond, you are putting a certain population of fish in there relative to the size of the production system also relative to your ability to feed. Right. So, one of the things that you need to do in fish farm in tilapia farming, you have to put same sex fingerlings so that they don't
produce. Yes.
So, primarily male fish. So, single male fish.

41:33
Single sex fish.
Single sex fish.
Yeah.
So, and also that has an error rate. It's about the really good guys can get to like 97 98%. So, this means is and also tilapia are prolific breeders. They breed ridiculously quickly.
So, you can imagine you you have a pond that you've specked for
a thousand fingerlings. You put in 1,000 fingerlings. 4 months in they start reproducing.
Mhm. M
now you have 1500 fingerlings
but your cash flow for feed is pecked for 1,000
fingerlings.
So you're under feeding.
So now you're under feeding.
Yes. The quantity has increased.
Exactly. So you feed what you can. So then suddenly your production cycle is 12 months when it should be 6 months and your con the constraint is not your management practices. The constraint is just

42:20
cash like the working capital to put in to produce to produce your fish. Right? Then at some point maybe you're lucky enough to harvest your fish. At harvest where's your market? Right? You hear the horror stories of a farmer will tell you I talked to a trader in Nairobi from Gumba. We agreed on price. He said he's coming the following morning. Didn't come.
Right. No, he paid me even a deposit of 50k or something. So for context like um a ton of fish is probably like around um 320,000 330,000. So let's say you're a small older farmer. Let's say you're harvesting about 800. So two to 300 shillings a kilo.
Exactly. Yeah.
Um no no the price about 300 300
on the lower side 300 for the highly efficient farmers about 300 to 340 is like the range.

43:06
No no at fargate.
At farmgate.
Okay.
A kilo.
Okay.
Right. So now you you you've been paid a deposit. You harvest all your fish. You're waiting for your customer to come and pick.
Customer shows up. He looks at the fish. She's like, "Uh-uh, me. I'm not giving you 320 per kilo. Give me two." So,
I'm going to give you 270.
You know, fish are not condors. You can take them back to their house and say, "Boss,
I've been this." Yeah. Bye, you go.
You know, your fish are out of the water. They're dead. [laughter]
Right. This at this point, you either take that price or you have an alternate market where you take you can take the your fish to, right? So th those farmers they have a huge sense of distrust of any traders because of the history they've had. They've had really bad experiences with traders in the past.

44:00
So now you're sort of like trying to understand their context and trying to build that trust.
And in fact, one of the things that we've noticed that was been really mind-blowing for us is
fish farmers don't want a better price. They want a consistent buyer.
Mhm. a consistent buy more important to them than a better price than a better price. In fact, there's people who will tell you um um I buy from a farmer in sorry for example, sorry is in Migori County, right? The farmer will you'll be harvesting the farmer is like oh someone showed up here yesterday he was just opening offering like 20 bob more per kg than you but I told him no I can't do that. This guy consistently buys from me

44:39 every time and he says what he will do. That is more important to me than that extra 20 bob on top um per kg and this is the story in most agricultural value chains.
Agreed.
Farmers just want consistency.
Consistent market.
Consistent market is a really really important thing. And also the thing with fish is obviously fish being a sensitive product you need culture right. So if I harvest my fish, I was expecting a buyer. The buyer doesn't show up. I don't have cold chain. This fish is going to go bad. So what do I do? I now discount to incentivize this fish to
move
to move. And here you're talking about farmers who are maybe running on from what we've seen maybe 10 to 15% like net profit like for the guys who are really good at like what they're doing. So like in that 320k pattern, his net is really 32K maybe, right?

45:34
So any drop in pricing
fixes him.
He's wiping out like his entire his entire margin. So you have like a market that just operates in this this dysfunctional way and there's a high sense of there's a high distrust within the whole value chain. So fundamentally on the farmer side trust building trust is like the most important thing on the farmer side.
Okay.
Yeah.
Have you found that the farmers are either organized or are organizing into some kind of cooperative structure?
Yeah.
Is that happening?
That's interesting. So we see some semblance of that. So historically from the wild catch fishing days we have something we call beach management units.
Right. So beach management units are essentially aggregation points where fish used to come. So they in a sense would be called like cooperatives. So when fish farming started becoming a thing, most fish farmers just joined the BMU because that was sort of like the cooperative that existed for people who are doing fish, right? So they organized in this like um BMUs. That's one. Number two though, I think the more private

46:41 ones, the big the more to large ones, they're not really members of BMU cuz they're like what value am I going to get? I'm going to do it myself.
I'm just going to do it myself. I'm going to organize myself and get my value chain working. I don't need the the membership of of a BMU. So, the experience of is very different depending on where you go. There's places where these BMUs are really strong, super organized and all of that. There are places where it's just the opposite.
Okay.
There.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah.
Now, yeah.
We've understood the back, we have understood the front.
Yeah.
Let's talk a bit about the future.
Yeah. So you you you now told us how you started with retail direct to customer but you're now pivoting more to B2B because let's also call Mama Samaki another B. She's been she's so your your B2B is your focus, right?

47:28
Yeah.
So where what does when you look at your business crystal ball or your aspirations for the future, what does that look like?
That's a really good question. I think on um so broadly speaking if I speak about the two parts of our business so let's talk about the farmer side um on the farmer side especially on the aggregation of fish our our key sort of like goal at the moment is to make that as efficient as possible and from a cost perspective right so as an example right now we have an aggregation we have an aggregation and processing center in Sori in Migori so that means is when we buy fish from a farmer the first place it goes to is that center in sorry and that's important for a couple of things one is that it allows us to aggregate volumes

48:16
right so we can aggregate we have cold chain there we have a team there we can aggregate volumes that's important so that when I send my five ton truck I'm sure is going to carry five tons of fish cuz you don't want inefficiencies if a 5 ton truck carries three tons of fish already you're losing
you're losing money
the unit prices in
exactly so we have that aggregation center to be able so closer to the farmers so that farmers have a sense of summer king locally close to them a place they can go to sell their fish where they we buy fish from them but we we can also process this fish because most of the fish we bring to Nairobi is has already been gutted and we have removed the skills so we've removed the guts the intestines and all of that we've removed the skills and cleaned it

49:01 and it's on ice so this is done as close to
the source as possible also Why? Because if you bring it to Nairobi to do it here, you've basically carried car carried garbage from sorry all the way to Nairobi which is weight. That's one. Number two,
also labor,
right? These places where we come from, these communities are they're not that well off, right? So there's also like an opportunity here to create like a lot of like employment by hiring people as well. So getting that aggregation side working and working efficiently is a very important um point. Number two as well is building out the cold chain
um infrastructure. So right now we're in the middle of in our aggregation center we're going to be setting up cold chain infrastructure. So about like in when it's done it's going to be hold about 10 tons um of fish at anyone at any one time. on the market side also setting up a distribution center or a hub so that when our lori leaves sorry in home bay or sa or Uganda wherever it's coming from it comes into the country it just

50:05 comes to Nairobi to a distribution center offloads everything then from the distribution center now we know which customers the fish is
is going to on this end which is on the customer side our big thing now is to stimulate demand right so as we aggregate more fish on the farmer side we need to have stimulated demand to be able to absorb all of this fish.
So for example, for us like our key metric is how many days do we stay with fish? We want that to be as efficient like as possible. So our sweet spot is really like we should not have fish in our custody for more than 48 hours.
Okay,
24 to 48 hours it should have been sold and gone off. So when we think about those channels that I spoke to I spoke about earlier, who can move those volumes? Mama Samaki is one. So how do we build? We're building more wholesale shops across the city closer to Mama Samakis, right? That's one. Number two is our B2B side. Our B2B customers, their their ability to absorb is there. Working capital is the issue.

51:06
So now focusing on how can we unlock the right working capital, the right structured working capital in a low margin business
that can use to also grow like that B2B. So really our pri that's those are our priorities on the on the aggregation side working with farmers aggregation center volumes bringing that to Nairobi in our hub and then growing our channels which is Mama Samaki is one important channel and also B2B and then that also primarily means that we're getting out of retail.
So there's a question about the farmers that has just come to mind. Yeah.
You're you're buying these farmers are raring the fish.
Yeah.
So, it's a cycle.
Yeah.
So, how do you get daily supply?

51:52
That's a good question.
What's your depth of farmers? How many farmers are you are are buying from you?
That's a really good question. So, basically what what you need to do in that case is you basically need we have a whole team on the on the on the farmer side, right? We have a really solid guy um Charlton who is leading sort of like our farmer operations and basically his whole job is to manage basically a whole contact list a CRM of farmers entirely and he basically has what we call like a calendar of harvest right he knows Mudachi's pond is going to be ready on this date
so and so's cage is going to be ready on this date on this date and basically in our database maybe right now probably you have like over

52:34
over maybe like over a thousand and farmers just primarily in in um in Homer Bay Sa um Busousia Migori but also remember that because Kenya has a fish deficit there's times when there's no fish in Kenya
now you have to cross the border
now you have to
why is there no fish
so they basically tapped out like we've bought everything is bought out so remember that fish deficit I talked about which is about 200,000 like metric tons of fish like a year
so a lot of the fish that we eat in Kenya is supplemented by fish from outside.
Yes.
You can't go to to Uganda.
You have to go to Uganda. You have to go to Ginger. So, we source mainly from ginger. We have a couple of big farms um that we work with, but that's a completely different business altogether

53:19
cuz now the the the the logistics,
border crossings,
border crossing and all of that. So, in an ideal world, we would never
cross the border for fish. But it is what it is. Cuz also on this side, you're making a promise to mama that fish will always be available daily.
Yeah.
Wow. Kinton, first of all, allow me to give you your flowers. You know, it's great for me as a as as a someone who has a passion for business and African business. It's great for me to see someone so young, so driven around a topic and and a business line that you've actually yes, you do understand fish because of your upbringing, but that you've actually owned and are learning. It's really exciting to see um you set out to set up a high impact

54:08 business and I believe you are because across the value chain you've just walked us through how you
so we wish you all the best as you continue to to grow Summer King.
So I'd now give you a chance to just speak to the audience and tell them where can they find Summer King, what are your handles, what are your socials, whether B2B customers or retail. I'm his customer. uh I buy fish for the home on a on a monthly basis from him and I can speak to the service and the quality of fish.
It's up to scratch.
But give that audience a chance to to know where they can find you and how they can buy fish for you.
For fun fact, you're in my top five percentile of customers really
when I do like my [laughter]

54:49
I appear there
when I do my customer value management and I like
I'm above I'm above 5 kilos. I'm about 5 kilos. You're keeping the lights on in my household. You're keeping the lights on. You're keeping the lights on.
Yeah. Karibu.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, thank you very much. I think for us um as Sama King, there's a big focus obviously right now on just like Mama Samakis and B2B. So, I think for any people who they feel like they can partner with Sam King on those ends if you're a fish farmer and all of that. So, our website is saching.co. My email is clinton@samaching.co. So, you can just email me um directly. Um also on socials you can find us on Facebook, on Instagram, Summer King Fish Market. You can also reach out to us if you think we can partner um in any way. I think on the other side also as well is just like to the young people right to the to the to the next generation as it were. Um so for for me I'm I'm born 92 so I'm 33 going to 34 um at the moment. And I think what's really interesting with generation this generation is agriculture is cool again.

55:54 There was a time when food and agriculture was not cool was not cool at all. But I think there sort of like something has changed and shifted and agriculture is um is is is is cool again. But I think fundamentally for me as an African as a Kenyan what really drives me is when you look at most Kenyans we do not have disposable income. Most Kenyans only have money for their core needs right which is food, education, shelter and all of that. But then why are we paying more for food in a country where people learn the earn the least right? So for me that is sort of like my passion which is like how do we get this agricultural value chains to be more efficient with the goal of over time just bringing down the cost of the cost of food right and this is particularly thinking about it in the context of Africa as a continent is going to double in population by 2050

56:45
so if we think it's bad now
it's getting worse
is only going to get worse right
so we need people at the forefront we need the dreamers the doers
the daydreamers the people who dream they wake up and get it done
excellent Get get up and get it done. That's what I would say.
Clinton, wow, what a fabulous conversation. So, um, Kenyans,
um, like I say, I I because I work in the restaurant space, so I get to see these challenges of the supply chain.
Uh, whether it's fish, whether it's goods, whether it's sheep, we have had you're our third protein related guest. We have had someone who deals with lamb banu and then we had a dairy and ranching advisor in in David Miner and now you're here to talk about fish. So you can get into anything. Pick your protein. Yeah. And just get in, learn what the ground says and take advantage of it. It's been a fabulous fabulous

57:39 conversation. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was Clinton Auba of Summer King Foods Limited. Um once again African Do podcast where we showcase excellent Africans executing excellently. Thank you very much for joining us on this episode and we look forward to seeing you in the future episodes. Asantana.