MADE IN KENYA: Entrepreneur making edible oil extraction machines

To address the gaps created by the rising demand, a local innovator is now making machines that help to make edible oils from farm produce such as sunflower seeds and peanuts. 

In 2023, Davis Bahati had had enough with spending a significant amount of his earnings buying edible oil for his family. Together with a friend, he came up with the idea of making their own edible oil. They founded Edible Oil Machine Fabricators, a venture making different machines used to make edible oil locally.

"We started the project in 2023, we were considering different types of crops like macadamia, sunflower, soya beans, canola and coconut. Then we ended up making a machine which can multitask or can do different crops for the oil," Bahati said.

Davis Murimi, an engineer with Edible Oil Machine Fabricators, says the machines are fast and consume less energy to extract the oil.

"It has a heating element that will heat the shaft up to a certain temperature depending on the seeds you are pressing. The turnaround time for production is 10-15kgs in an hour depending on the seeds. What comes out is crude oil which cannot be used for cooking immediately. So there are two options; you can use a filter machine, or you can store the oil in a still container whereby it will decant automatically by gravity," Murimi says.

They are now targeting more youth to embrace their innovations as a way of becoming self-sufficient. He says that the machines give good returns.

Bahati says that the Edible Oil machines return on investment for their clients, and now they look forward to innovating even more to be able to provide more solutions to the everyday challenges Kenyans encounter.

"First, our machines are stainless, they are easy to operate, once you’ve been trained it doesn’t require a lot of skills to operate them. Also you don’t need to have a three phase power for you to use the machine. We want to create more opportunities because we are targeting the East Africa market to impact as many youths as possible," he says.