Standing at the porch of the factory as our bodies are bathed by steam from a massive water recycling pit below, Mr Alfred Soi, the chairman of West Valley Sugar Company, points towards an unfinished structure that looks like a sub-station and raises his voice above the roar of the mills.
Alfred Soi, the chairperson of West Valley Sugar.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
West Valley’s distillery, whose details are still scant, will be used to make ethanol from molasses, a thick brown syrup that is left when sugar crystalises.
West Valley Sugar Company,
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
The distillery will also get molasses from Muhoroni Sugar Company in Kisumu County.
Cane yard at Muhoroni Sugar Company.
Photo credit: Ondari Ogega | Nation Media Group
Apart from ethanol, sugarcane can also be used to make other products.
A classic illustration of squeezing many valuable products from cane is offered by Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries.
The Kibos Complex has plants for milling, power generation, a sugar refinery, a distillery, a paper mill and fertiliser-making.
To achieve all these, one needs tens of thousands of acres of sugarcane. The investor also requires efficient mills.
When the cane is crushed, the dry pulp that is left – also known as bagasse – is pushed into the boilers where it is heated.
This, in turn, heats water whose steam is eventually used to make electricity to power the factory and plant.
With adequate electricity due to a good supply of sugarcane, the miller can produce surplus electricity which can then be sold to the national grid.
This was the game plan of Mumias Sugar’s 35MW bagasse-based co-generation plant that saw it sign an agreement with Kenya Power to supply the distributor with electricity.
However, the plan was disrupted when the company ran out of bagasse due to a reduced supply of cane.
Agro Chemical & food Company Limited in Kisumu County.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
In raw form, molasses can be used to improve animal feed or make fertiliser, but it is largely transformed into ethanol, which is then used in the distillation of spirits like whiskey, gin or rum by compounders.
Rai Group’s subsidiary – West Kenya Sugar Company – is soon building a Sh3.86 billion distillery next to its sugar factory in Kakamega that has a milling capacity of 5,000 tonnes of cane per day (TCD).
With the leasing of Bungoma-based Nzoia Sugar Company which has a TCD of 3,000 for the next 30 years, West Kenya will barely run short of molasses to supply its distillery that is designed for making extra neutral alcohol (ENA), fusel oil and technical alcohol for 330 days a year.
As long as all the plants in the five subsidiaries under Rai Sukari – the holding company for the Rai family sugar factories – keep humming, cane will be milled and molasses will be produced.
West Kenya Sugar Chairman Jaswant Singh Rai.
Photo credit: File | Nation media Group
This decision has been opposed by the area leaders and residents. Analysts say it is a move that is likely to inflame the rivalry between Mr Jaswant and his brother Sarbjit Rai of Uganda’s Sarrai Group .
On the Nandi Hills-Kimwani road in Nandi County, the family of Brig (rtd) Peter Kipchirchir Magut, is setting up Tiryo Sugar Mills Limited at an estimated cost of Sh357.8 million.
Apart from a sugar miller with a daily crushing capacity of 1,000 tonnes, the Eldoret-based investor is also building a 45 kilolitre per day distillery as more entrepreneurs plunge into the alcohol business.
“The market is huge,” says Mr Edwin Owino, the General Manager in charge of Finance and ICT at Agro Chemical.
EABL, which is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange, gets most of its ethanol from Agro Chemicals Ltd, but the company management says it is never enough.
The alcohol manufacturer is usually forced to look for more ethanol from elsewhere to plug the deficit.
When sugar production goes up, he adds, molasses will also increase, with the distilleries having more than they require.
He says this is the reason Agro Chemical imports molasses from distilleries in Uganda, which also happen to have mills.
“It is a mill but is able to sell extra. One company cannot produce everything,” Mr Owino adds.
Dr Jane Pamela Odhiambo, the incoming Managing Director of New South Nyanza Sugar Company (Sony) 2025, says as part of the long-term project, the private investor plans to diversify into many by-products of sugar processing.
“There are areas the company was hoping to get into for a long time, including electricity co-generation and producing ethanol,” Dr Odhiambo says.
When he made a presentation before the National Assembly Committees of Finance and Agriculture, Mumias Sugar Company General Manager Rakesh Bvats warned against taking this route.
That is not surprising. There is a high demand for table sugar, which the local market has not been able to meet. That makes the country import the deficit.
Mr Owino urges caution as the millers diversify. He says the companies should not make the mistake of Mumias Sugar, “which went into many things at once, including areas it had no experience”.
