Sasini PLC has invited sealed tenders for the sale of its avocado processing and packing plant in Nairobi, marking a significant strategic retreat from the vertically integrated fruit export model the listed agribusiness has built over the past decade.
- •The facility, operated through subsidiary Sasini Avocado EPZ Limited, sits at Sameer Industrial Park along Mombasa Road.
- •Commissioned in 2021, the plant houses a four-lane Eshet Eilon packing line processing up to 8 tonnes per hour, alongside a cold storage room capable of staging up to four export containers simultaneously.
- •Sasini shipped only 22 containers of avocados in FY2025, down sharply from 71 containers in FY2024, after Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping effectively closed the Suez Canal to commercial traffic.
The avocado unit recorded losses in the financial year ended September 2025, alongside headwinds in tea and macadamia, even as the group returned to overall profitability on the back of an exceptional coffee performance.
Vessels rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope faced nearly double the transit time and significantly higher logistics costs, eroding the competitiveness of Sasini's produce in its primary European and US markets.
Group revenue for FY2025 rose 22.5% to KES 8.44bn, but cost of sales climbed 17.9% to KES 7.43bn, reflecting sustained pressure from logistics costs and macroeconomic conditions. The avocado segment's struggles were visible earlier, with the half-year results to March 2025 showing a net loss of KES 113.1mn at the group level.
At its virtual AGM in March 2026, Group MD Martin Ochieng told shareholders the fruit export business had been the most severely affected segment. He pointed to the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as the key constraint, and said Sasini was accelerating diversification into Asian markets, with China and India identified as priority destinations.
The plant being sold sits within Sameer Industrial Park, Kenya's premier Export Processing Zone, which offers investors income tax holidays for the first ten years and exemptions on import duties and VAT on qualifying inputs. Any acquirer operating it as a going concern would inherit those incentives, subject to EPZA approval, along with certifications under Global G.A.P., SMETA, and KEPHIS standards.
