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WHY INVESTORS OPT FOR RUIRU
Carrefour and Textbook Centre are among the latest leading retail brands that have chosen Ruiru
as a preferred investment destination. Carrefour is a well-known international brand while
Textbook Centre is the largest distributor of schoolbooks and school stationery in East Africa.
Other recent arrivals in Ruiru include Davis and Shirtliff, Unileaver, Dormans, Chandaria
Industries, Friendship Containers and Shenzen Stars among many others.
The transformation of Ruiru from a rural shopping centre to the present bustling industrial and
commercial hub happened within the last ten years. Originally, the main attraction of investors in
manufacturing was the town’s proximity to Nairobi and the well-developed communication
facilities between Nairobi and Thika. The latter was then the seat of manufacturing in the Mt.
Kenya region. In Ruiru investors found alternative and more affordable sites away from the
congestion of the Nairobi Industrial area yet within reach of the services offered by the city.
Most of the factories were therefore set up along the Nairobi-Thika Highway and railway line for
ease of bringing in raw materials and transporting the finished products to the market. The initial
industrial investors included Devki Steel Mills, Ruiru Feeds and Super Foam. For a long time
there were no new investments until the advent of the superhighway slightly over 10 years ago.
Since then however the town has come of age and is attracting investors independently. The
current added attraction is mainly attributable to improvement of infrastructures beginning with
the expansion of the Thika highway into an eight-lane superhighway, followed by the
construction of the Nairobi Eastern bypass that links the superhighway to Mombasa Road and
ultimately to the port of Mombasa directly. It also joins the Southern bypass that connects the
highway to the Rift Valley and Western Kenya counties as well as to the key export markets in
Southern Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern DRC.
Another infrastructural development that has greatly enhanced Ruiru’s profile as an investment
destination is the Northern bypass that connects the Eastern bypass to the highway to Western
Kenya via Ruaka, Wangige and Gitaru. Better still the expansion to dual carriage of the highway
to Northern Kenya and Ethiopia via Thika, Murang’a, Karatina and Nanyuki is currently
underway.
Majority of new industrial investments entered Ruiru in the last seven or so years. And most of
them are to be found in Tatu City. Launched in November 2015, Tatu City Park has attracted
close to 100 Kenyan, regional and multinational companies to what is today the leading special
economic zone in in the country.
Tatu City is a 5,000-acre new development in Ruiru with homes, schools, offices, a shopping
district, medical clinics, nature areas, a sport and entertainment complex and a manufacturing
area for more than 150,000 residents and tens of thousands of day visitors.
The Bidco Industrial Park was among the first tenants in Tatu City. Officially launched by then
President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2017 the KSHS 20 million complex hosts a beverage and food
processing factory, a new business that is completely independent from the mother company in
thika according to Bidco chairman Vimal Shah.
The park that sits on part of an 80-acre parcel of industrial land that also houses a 550,000 litres
per day effluent treatment plant, and a 90,000 litres per hour water filtration facility. In addition
the park has a power station that supplies 7.5 megawatts of electricity to the factory.
Another recent entrant into the Ruiru industrial landscape is animal health company Cooper K-
Brands. The company has set up a Sh700 million industrial complex to manufacture mineral salts
and nutritional products for the dairy and poultry sub-sectors. The new production line heralds a
new shift to local manufacturing after many years of distribution partnerships with local and
international stakeholders.
Cooper K-Brands is known locally as the marketer for brands such as Maclicks, Kupa Kula,
coopers milking salve, Kupa Cide, Triatix stock spray, Grenade and dewormer products such as
Nefluk and Nilzan Super, Nilzan Bolus and Nilzan. The new plant will produces Maclik dairy
salt and Kupa Kula minerals brands. The plant combines both a production and packaging line. It
also has an installed solar plant as an alternative form of cleaner energy. The factory sits on six
acres of prime industrial land.
The other noteable addition to the Ruiru industrial landscape is the Davis & Shirtliff plant at
Tatu City. Davis Group is a leading supplier for water equipment and energy solutions in East
Africa. The 10,000 sqm development on five acres also includes offices and state-of-the-art
warehousing. With its headquarters in Kenya the company has subsidiaries in Uganda, Tanzania,
Zambia, Rwanda and South Sudan, and a partnership in Ethiopia.
Davis & Shirtliff participates in seven product segments all focused on providing energy and
water solutions. A particular focus is its growing presence in the solar energy business where it is
already a market leader. Other activities include surface and borehole water pumping, water
treatment, swimming pools, power generation and irrigation where it sells many products under
the Dayliff own brand as well as using international suppliers like Pedrollo and Grundfos.
Among international brands at Tatu City are several from South Africa including Crawford
International school, a 20-acre, multi-billion-shilling investment, Kenya Wine Agencies Ltd
(KWAL), which is majority owned by South African beverage conglomerate Distell; and Cold
Solutions, an investment by ARCH Emerging Markets Partners.