Hi Wazuans,
I am a Nairobi based entrepreneur looking for Kenyans in Diaspora to partner with in exporting Kenyan products abroad.
There are an estimated 1 million Kenyans abroad, mostly in North America, Europe and Asia.
These Kenyans constantly need certain Kenyan products to reach them on a regular basis. Home is best.
That is the opportunity I see. They need Majani chai, Unga Ngano, Njahe, Nduma, Terere, Tusker, Macadamia, Maasai Market Crafts and much more.
Since I am based in Kenya (the source), getting in touch with people in diaspora (the market) is a crucial part in this business.
Wazuans, what do you think of this venture?
Anyone interested to join me?

jsaitoti(at)gmail.com

@Chaka, I have seen Kenyans, on several occasions, traveling back to the USA & UK with these products.

The most recent sighting being yesterday evening when i saw one kenyan lady departing at JKIA to the UK. She had nduma, ngwace and unga ya Jogoo.

To where? If in the US ziliwachwa airport. Anything with the KBS label will pass. Kenyans living abroad carry such stuff and sell it to Kenyan shopkeepers there. But I encourage you to do it, the demand is there.

United Kisumu,yes.
Did you confirm whether she boarded with them? labda zilikuwa supper ya night staff.
You can hide 2 or 3 light ones in your checked luggage and pray it doesn't get pulled aside.Very painful to lose such treasure.Now try stuffing it with mangwaces utalia-What of the weight allowed per luggage?

Nigerians/Ghanians are courageous,one even attempted to carry a species of black snails (for consumption)known to cause massive destruction to vegetation to the US through, uuhm.. kamisi.
They didn't refer to them as food when he was caught in US but was charged with'trafficking of live creatures,known to.....

I am travelling back to the US soon with 2 empty suitcases. I have been wondering what I can carry along, your idea sounds good but I know that
on arrival, raw foodstuffs will not be allowed in. Dry foods like unga may go through, but then there is the problem of finding the Kenyans to buy the stuff. The US is huge, so unless you have a shop which you can be stocking regularly, just finding people is not feasible especially if you sell to them online,you would have to pay shipping costs which is at a minimum of $5. Good luck, if you need to send stuff to someone,lemme know.

I think it's possible, atleast I have seen kenyan products in mainly Arabs stores. The question is, how do you want to do it.

A.) Go big or

B.) Go small.

some time back I had a conversation with some Kenya Lady in USA, she had had a great opportunity to execute a big export deal but it didn't go through because of very small technicality which she blamed on herself.

Here is what it went: The Lady, who is very smart but no formal education and no documented professional experience i.e she wasn't working in fortune 500 or any job that requires college education, she was as regular as it can get. This lady in her late 30s approach a local coffee chain with (~100 store). Her pitch was, she had coffee in Kenya that she wanted to sell to them and was able to sign a multi million $ multi year deal with the store. Problem is, she didn't have any coffee or any money to ship coffee from Kenya to the USA. What did she do? She went to the bank with the signed contract and ask for loan, the pitch was, I have a signed contract to sell coffee and I have coffee in Kenya but need money to ship coffee to USA. The bank actually offered 100% purchase order financing. The bank was going to pay shipping and purchase of coffee in Kenya, they were going to issue an order thats as good as a check but will release the money once the coffee chain recieve coffee. The bank had a good relationship with the coffee chain.

Now here is where everything felt apart. The lady didn't have any coffee. The bank needed formal documents to see that the company in Kenya holding coffee in registered. She turned to her brother inlaw in Kenya for help since she is based in USA and trusted him to do the right thing. The agreement was the brother inlaw will register a company in Kenya, the brother inlaw would have been the CFO and she would have been the CEO. However, the brother inlaw decided that it make more sense for him to be the CEO and her to be the CFO; so he went ahead and registered the company giving himself full responsibility in decision making for the company. The lady had already told the bank and the coffee shop that she was the CEO! END OF THE DEAL!

Lesson: These deals are possible if you do it the right way.

Wazua is a home to great minds! Thanks guys, this is informative!!

the deal is possible though they have so many regulatory processes like the food and drug administration which you have to apply the permission and they have monitor and check the quality of food items before they get in just to check whether they will bring any diseases. you need to partner with someone who knows FDA (food and drug administration) and department of agriculture procedure well to help you through,but there is a way round it.i see my friends from west Africa bring some idigenious food that they sell so I believe its possible. go through this before you partner with anybody
http://www.fda.gov/Food/...portsExports/Importing/