In October 2024, Waihiga Mutero had just Sh5,000 left of her savings and was unemployed. A friend who had heard about her granola recipe finally placed an order for one kilogram and paid upfront.
This single transaction marked the relaunch of Gratifying Granola, a home-based artisan brand that now supplies doctors, expatriates, and health-conscious families across Nairobi three times a week. Mutero used the money to buy oats, flavourings and basic Ziploc packaging for the first batch. Everything since then has been built on the profits from the business. However, this was never a career path she had considered.
Mutero, 33, graduated from the United States International University-Africa in 2020 with a degree in journalism. Two years of applying for broadcast jobs produced no results. To make ends meet, she tutored Korean students in English online and created social media content for clients.
“I expected to go into broadcasting and become a news anchor, but I was unemployed for a couple of years after graduation. I tried looking for jobs in my field, but I wasn't able to find any,” she says.
Meanwhile, the idea of selling granola, which she had done before, remained at the back of her mind. Between 2017 and 2020, Mutero and her mother, who is also a journalist, ran a small supply operation serving clients in Garden Estate, Ridgeways, and Runda. However, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, they were forced to shut down due to a lack of orders and unmanageable production costs. When she relaunched, she already knew the product and her customers.
Granola is a mixture of toasted rolled oats, sweetener, fat, and nuts, seeds, or dried fruit. Getting it right depends on the ratios of the ingredients used, the oven temperature, the baking time, and how well the fat coats the oats. Too much heat and the oats will scorch, and too little and the clusters will not hold together.
Waihiga Mutero showcases a bowl of freshly baked gratifying granola in her bakery.
Photo credit: Pool
Mutero bakes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, strictly on order. She produces four flavours. Vanilla and Orange Delight retail at Sh800 per 500-gram pack. Choco-Bite, which uses higher-grade chocolate, sells for Sh850, while Apple Crumble, the most labour-intensive of the four, retails at Sh900.
Walk into any Nairobi supermarket, and the granola section is clearly divided between imported and local products. Imported brands from South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States are at the premium end of the market, with prices ranging from Sh1,200 to Sh2,500 for a 500-gram pack. Meanwhile, the price of local commercial brands ranges from Sh600 to Sh900.
“I don't use any preservatives in my products. Honey and sugar naturally extend the shelf life, keeping the product fresh for up to six weeks at room temperature and up to six months when frozen," says Mutero.
Her core customers, many of whom are medical professionals and expatriates who are already familiar with the product category, are most likely to read the label. This familiarity also makes them open to customisation.
"I'm not a big corporation buying wholesale in bulk," she says. “I'm also flexible. I work with clients who want to change something—no, honey, different extracts. I can tailor things to what a specific person wants."
Mutero does almost all of her sales through WhatsApp, word of mouth, and community referrals.
"I tried farmers' markets and food events, but I found the economics poor. There was a high time investment, inconsistent sales, and full days that ended with only one pack sold. I have never returned to that channel,” she says.
She has built a small but steady customer base. One client now orders 24 packs a month. At prices between Sh800 and Sh900, that account alone represents Sh19,200 to Sh21,600 in monthly revenue.
Demand peaks at the start and end of each month, with the middle weeks consistently slower. She has learned to plan production around this pattern. What she has not yet fully resolved, however, is the financial side of things. She struggles to stay on top of reconciling input costs, labour time and packaging against revenue in order to confirm whether the business is genuinely profitable rather than simply breaking even.
"It's heartbreaking when you realise that you're not breaking even," she says. "So much work goes into it."
Gratifying granola, available in 500 g packs in four flavours: classic vanilla, orange delight, chocobite and apple crumble. They are packaged in small batches to maintain quality.
Photo credit: Pool
One investment that has paid off is certification. Gratifying Granola has received Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) approval, which Mutero describes as the business's most significant milestone to date.
“KEBS certification is widely assumed to be beyond the reach of a home-based operation, given that it involves inspections of production premises, ingredient sourcing documentation, and labelling compliance,” she says.
This approval is now a prerequisite for the retail expansion she is working towards, which involves selective placement in stores where customers already understand and expect transparent labelling of ingredients, rather than mass-market distribution.
Mutero is looking to hire so that she can reduce her own production workload and free up time for business development, which is difficult to prioritise in a one-person operation. She is also planning to further develop her Apple Crumble. She says this has demonstrated that concepts from outside the core granola range can be adapted to it, and she is working on further additions. The broader market has been favouring her. Gyms across Nairobi are expanding, running clubs have grown steadily, and padel courts are opening. Meanwhile, consumer attention to food ingredients has increased. None of this comes as a surprise to her.
“Food is practical,” she says. “People always need food.”
