The seedlings are almost ready. What a transformation!! The photos were taken on the 9th of June exactly two months from the date the Youth Reform boys and girls started to clear the dump site. We still have issues with the soil test and will try to intercrop plants that will extract the heavy metals, with food plants. When the crops and extraction plants are mature we will test them to see the effects. Hopefully the food crops will be ok? 
Kims’ new products came into the shop today from the dairy. We had samples of Tzaziki, cream cheese with sundried tomatoes and cream cheese with chives plus a combo of the two. We set up the sandwich counter as a test area with slices of baguette on hand to try the new products. Thumbs up to the Tzaziki, it couldn’t be better. A combination of grated cucumber, garlic and a very thick yoghurt. The cucumber should have been grated, salted and then left to stand before being wrung in a square of sterilised fabric to remove the excess water. Although the product when chilled was perfect, at room temp it began get a little watery,there was also no noticeable salt. Could be that this part of the reciepe was forgotten? Will check with Kim tomorrow. I strongly believe that mistakes should and must be made in order to gain lasting lessons. Especially when producing a product for the first time.
The other products needed a little more tweaking, more veg ingredient and a dash of salt. Other than that the customer response was thumbs up all the way. In future, I will have Kim come out from the dairy to do the customer testing himself. This way he will learn more and will get the kudos direct from the consumer. Nothing is more rewarding.
We also tested the banana/vanilla yoghurt smoothie. Folk loved it, it’s almost ready to go into production. I feel the vanilla flavour was not pronounced enough and think we should make an extract first. We worked with fresh vanilla which looked great as the little black flecks in the mix gave authenticity to the vanilla claim, however, if I was on the receveing end I would not be convinced vanilla was actually used.
Its an odd thing fresh dried vanilla. Smells decidedly like cardboard when close up , but wonderfully vanilly when from a distance. A good friend and customer Paula suggests we create an extract by steeping the vanilla in vodka for a few weeks . We’ve tried it it’s great, can’t imagine it’s a good idea to have vodka in kids smoothies and yog though 
Worse still the idea of sending bottles of vodka to the diary is asking for MAJOR trouble !!
Kim operates the Brackenridge Jersey Dairy. It lies nestled in the middle of one of the most serene farms in Tigoni. The farm is home to one of Kenyas oldest Jersey breeding herds and belongs to Tris and Quentin Luke. There are about 40 cows of all sizes on the farm and Isaac the bull……..Maharaja is waitng his turn in line.
We’ve been on the farm for two years now and early on Dominic (my incredible brother) built us a custom made processing plant. (more on the plant later) This plant now under Kims supervision produces probiotic yoghurts, creams, cream cheeses, milk (raw and pasturised), kwark (a kind of fromage fraise and thick yoghurt mix )and our products have been written about as being some of the best quality in the country.
From April Kim will have the opportunity become a profit share holder in the dairy and is currently learning how to develop new products. Last week we trained him on 4 new products using organic products from the shops and ideas from my trip to Germany to Bio Fach in February. Tomorrow is an exciting day, as we will be sampling his new range, Tzaziki, sundried tomatoes and cream cheese spread, chives and cream cheese spread and a mixture of sundried tomatoes and cream cheese spread. Anna Rosalu does the finest sundried tomatoes on the planet!
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we are a meat eating nation. Kim has never tasted the products he is now developing. And now at the marketing end we have to educate our consumers on what to do with things like Tzaziki. I can see it soon becoming a must in Kenyan households Nyama choma and tsaziki……….barbequed meat and tzaziki
Today was spent juggling my time between meetings and the little kitchen in the back of the shop. The plan was to teach Angela how to make fruit smoothies. Angela, originally a supplier, is soon to take over the running of the shop. A food technologist by training, she started up her own business in mushroom production a few years ago. As with most products, you find the reality of sales can be a little below your expectations, and where there was a huge drive to introduce mushroom production in the country as an alternative source of protein, Angela soon found the obstacles were not in production, but rather in consumption. We’re not a mushroom eating nation, ……….we’re Africans, we like meat!
During her mushroom producing days (which we hope to revive) Angela spent much of her time educating people on the nutritional benefits and cooking options of mushrooms. She was at every farmers market and soon had a variety of products including dried mushrooms and dried powder mushrooms.
One of the biggest strengths of any entreprenuer is being able to recognise when it is time to fold the towel and put it on the shelf…………….as opposed to throwing in the towel. Angela uses the terminology of ‘bleeding’, her business was bleeding money and it was time to shut it down. Her products were exceptional and we miss them in the shop.
Her opprotunities in the shop allow for her to expand her creative ways in a variety of products. I feel very happy and confident she will be exceptional and look forward to the future of having a whole range of exciting new products.
So today was largely about getting a hang of the machinery. Our shop kitchen, kitchenette……more like transformed 1.5×1.5m wash room……….more on that later………barely allows for two people to work at the same time. We did however manage to produce fresh organic carrot juice, carrot and pineapple juice, and a smoothie blend of papaya and pineapple. And just because we could, we developed a fantastic new product, a baby banana,yoghurt and vanilla smoothie, the first of our dairy smoothies range! I’ve always cringed at the idea of blending yog and fruit…..so this was quite out of the box for me. I was however pleasantly suprised at how delicious it was!………so tomorrow, Kim (who you will hear about later……..) will send us some of his fantastic yoghurt form the dairy and we will launch a new product!!
Angela amazes me with her patience and eagerness to learn and learn and learn. Another exceptional quality she has is that she is ever ready to teach too and plans to show Ndichu……(more on him and his mum later too!)……and his crew on the farm how to produce mushrooms.
Green Dreams Organic in Kenya