Prosoya is a Private Limited company incorporated under the laws of Kenya in 2009. Business operations started in June 2010; since then, the company has been processing dairy meal, nutritious porridge flour for relief market in the arid regions and soybean extrusion. Most of the company’s products are distributed through institutions (schools through the Government, NGOs for relief) and packaged in bulk for these markets.

IFDC is a public international organization that enables smallholder farmers in developing countries to increase agricultural productivity, generate economic growth and practice environmental stewardship by enhancing their ability to manage mineral and organic fertilizers responsibly and participate profitably in input and output markets.

This Partnership Agreement with Prosoya Kenya Ltd relates to the 2SCALE program, co-funded by the private sector and by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS). Building on a first phase (2012-18) , the current phase of 2SCALE runs from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023. It is awarded to a consortium led by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and comprising the Base-of-the-Pyramid Innovation Center (BoPlnc) and the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV).

2SCALE incubates and accelerates inclusive businesses through partnerships with companies (African/ Dutch small- and medium-sized enterprises SMEs) and producer organizations (POs) that want to build commercially viable strategies in African food industries through sustainable sourcing, based on mutually beneficial relations with smallholder farmers and other local micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs ); and/ or by serving local and regional Base-of-the-Pyramid (BoP) markets with nutritious food products.

Specifically, 2SCALE supports partnerships with significant potential to improve the terms of inclusion of smallholder farmers and other MSMEs in target food value chains, to attract and employ the youth, to engage and empower women, and to improve food and nutrition security, both at grassroots level and at the consumer end of the value chain. Local networks, also called agribusiness clusters (ABCs), are instrumental to the 2SCALE program to ensure better access to services and strengthen innovative and bargaining capacities of smallholder farmers.

The partnership agreement aims to reduce malnutrition and improve access to nutritious food for the base of the pyramid consumers through processing of locally sourced soybeans into an affordable ready to eat porridge. During the partnership, the ready to eat porridge and flour will be introduced to the low-income consumer markets that will save them time in preparation and the cost of energy. The idea is to have a product that will be distributed directly to the base of the pyramid consumers located in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) and the low-income residential areas of Nairobi.

Since over 90% of the soybean is imported (as of 2019), this idea also seeks to grow the local sourcing of soybean from the small holder farmers.