By Lyzzie Owade

Josephine left Mwea in 2022 to look for work in Malindi, but found instead a trade that now supports her entire family. By buying coconuts cheaply at the Coast and transporting them inland, she has built a ‘move-it’ business that delivers profits on every sack.

“Here in the market, I buy from as low as Sh15, depending on the size,” said Josephine. She sends the coconuts to her mother in Mwea to sell from a small kiosk that also offers tomatoes, onions, and sukuma wiki. “My mum has a kibanda selling tomatoes, onions and skuma wiki in the town so she adds coconut to it too,” she said.

Coconut prices in the coastal counties of Kilifi and Kwale, which are covered in thousands of trees, vary by season. “Like any other crops coconut too has seasons. In the coast the majority of people are Muslims, so during Ramadhani the demand is always very high,” said Josephine. “You can even buy one piece at Sh40, which is very high and will make me sell them at Sh100 so that I can get a profit.”

During the dry season too, when lorries buy directly from farms and supplies run short, the price rises. “So what we always do is make an order from different farmers regarding how many they will always deliver,” said Josephine.

She packs around 250 to 300 coconuts into a 90kg sack, paying the farmers Sh20 per nut. At resale in Mwea, she earns Sh70 per coconut. “This is what is feeding my siblings back at home,” she said. “Since coconut has high demand in our area, the market is high so I can do 2–3 sacks in a month depending on the market.”

“I have to buy a new sack and put all the coconut inside and give it out to the rider to take them to a bus station so that they can be transported as a parcel where I pay Sh500,” she said. “I pay a rider Sh100 to the kibanda.”

The coconuts then sell quickly. “You know most people from upcountry don’t know how to cook using coconut. So the majority of them are eating it raw thus making it easy to clear the stock easily,” said Josephine.

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Her success highlights wider ‘move-it’ opportunities across Kenya. Tomatoes from central Kenya, for instance, often sell for Sh2–Sh5 each during gluts, when farm gate prices can fall to Sh50–Sh100 per crate. But in remote towns like Marsabit, where tomatoes aren’t grown, the same crate can sell for Sh300–Sh500, with each tomato retailing at Sh10–Sh15.

Beans offer another strong margin. In October 2024, Rosecoco beans bought in Nakuru or Eldoret were selling for up to Sh20 more per kilo in Mombasa and Nairobi, with prices 15–30 per cent higher in deficit regions.