Umurungi turned her passion for food preservation into a thriving enterprise

Florence Umurungi is the proprietor of Royal Dairies, a milk processing and cheese making firm in Kimironko, Gasabo District. Umurungi says she had a love affair with food, especially trying to enhance its shelf life, at an early age. “I usually tried out rudimentary food processing of various produce, most especially milk, out of curiosity,” Umurungi says. She says it was because of this passion that she studied a food science course at university. She later worked as a food safety expert at milk and food processing firm as well as at the standards body. This was before she took the leap to start her own milk processing plant, Royal Dairies in Masaka Kicukiro District. Recently, Umurungi was elected the president of the Rwanda National Dairy Platform, a private sector-led body that oversees the development of the dairy industry. She also has interests in the real estate industry, and is the manager of Sinai Suites Apartments in Kimironko sector, Gasabo District. How she started Umurungi says when she returned from Uganda 19 years ago, she was employed as a resettlement officer at city council (City of Kigali), where she worked for five years. “Though I enjoyed my job, I wanted to be more innovative and fully exploit my potential. “After I had saved enough money, I decided to enroll for a course in food and safety management technology at the former Kigali Institute of Science and Technology,” she explains. After school, Umurungi joined the Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS) as a livestock certification products officer in 2007 until 2009. “It was from this experience that I started realising the importance of quality and value addition along the value chain of production. “It gave me an opportunity to understand how being a farmer and a dairy processor really meant,” she points out. “This was concretised when I joined Inyange Industries as the food safety manager, where I worked for two years.” Umurungi also worked as national milk quality specialist with a dairy sector project sponsored by USAID, which is currently being managed by Land O’Lakes. Royal Dairies is born Umurungi says that after her stint at the USAID-sponsored dairy improvement project, she started her own dairy processing firm, Royal Dairies. “I started Royal Dairies to meet customer needs, but also to prove that Rwanda can produce quality milk products for the region and global markets,” she adds. Umurungi says the driving factor behind her firm was the need to add value to dairy products, increase their shelf-life to fetch a better price. “It’s all about standards…I kept thinking about my experience as a food and safety expert. “Sharing it with others was not enough. I needed to demonstrate that all I was telling them was possible to put into practice,” she notes. Challenges Umurungi who produces mostly cheese, says the product is not yet appreciated by most people. “This affects its marketability, which calls for a vigorous awareness about the importance of consuming milk and its products,” she says. Dry spells also mean processors have to dig deeper into their pockets to buy milk due to scarcity. She says this affects the prices of cheese.” The high cost of packaging materials is also a huge challenge for the dairy sector, says Umurungi. “Cheese is a perishable product that requires delicate handling, especially when packing to avoid contamination,” she says. Achievements Started with about Rwf1.2m, Royal Dairies is not only a self-sustaining milk processing entity, but has since expanded its market share and exports some of the cheese to Uganda and Burundi. Umurungi has also expanded and diversified into the hospitality sector, currently running the Sinai Suites Apartments situated in Kimironko sector, Gasabo. On a personal level, the mother of five has bagged a master’s degree in business management. About dairy platform Umurungi says as the president national dairy platform, she looks to see the sector grow and become better in terms of product quality, volumes and value so that it contributes more to the country’s economic transformation. She says the self-regulation will go a long in improving the sector, and calls on all stakeholders to work towards more productivity and quality. She notes that it is important that stakeholders along the value chain appreciate the sector, especially its role towards national development. Umurungi says her vision is to expand the dairy sector and make it competitive. Advice Umurungi challenges women to be innovative and always try something else if one fails. She urges milk processors and dairy farmers to identify and understand the sector’s challenges and try to turn them into business opportunities to grow the industry and make it a big contributor of foreign exchange to the national treasury. Umurungi says she spends her free time doing sports and church activities.

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Umurungi turned her passion for food preservation into a thriving enterprise