Ten Kenyan SMEs are among the participants taking part at the International Food and Drink Event (IFE) that will be held from 20th to 22nd March in London, Great Britain.  The event will bring together over 25,000 food and drink professionals for face-to-face and Business to Business interactions and sampling of new products. The 10 women-led SMEs are part of the World in Trade for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth (WIT) project which is being implemented by Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (KEPROBA) in partnership with Trade Facilitation Office (TFO) Canada.

The selected SMEs are mainly from the agro-food sector and were drawn from a list of 98 beneficiaries of training workshops conducted by the Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency in collaboration with TFO Canada between February and March 2022.

The selected SMEs who are based in the agro-food sector were drawn from a list of 98 beneficiary trainees who attended the training workshops conducted by Kenya in various parts of the country.

Participation in the International Food and Drink Event (IFE) will enable the selected SMEs from Kenya to benchmark their products against their competition while also allowing them to engage with potential investors, clients and distributors across the food value chain in the United Kingdom besides gaining familiar knowledge on the UK market penetration requirements. 

Women in Trade for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth (WIT) is a 5-year (2019 - 2024) project funded by Global Affairs Canada and TFO Canada. The project seeks to address the main constraints women exporters face, including limited skills, resources, and networks to access global trade markets, and low levels of involvement as members and leaders of trade support institutions.

The Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency through its mandate is collaborating with strategic partners to support gender mainstreaming and capacity building for women and youth-led SMEs in Kenya through training in research, development of marketing communications strategies and export plans. The project’s focus is on products and services in sectors with high employment potential for women and prioritizes products and services with low environmental impact. The sectors were selected through a gender-sensitive country market and sector research on Agro-based (tea, horticulture, coffee, avocado) and textiles (apparel &clothing accessories. Among the 10 selected SMEs include, Turadah Agribusiness Ltd, Teascape AfricaLimited, Fresh Approach, Masedi Limited, and Home premier tea ltd, to mention a few.