Muhoroni Sugar Factory restarts with daily cane capacity of 1,400 tonnes

For Muhoroni, a working sugar mill is more than a factory.

It is where farmers take their cane, where transporters get business and where traders depend on the money that moves through the local economy.

That activity has returned to Muhoroni Sugar Company, which resumed milling on June 6, 2026, after a six-week maintenance shutdown.

The mill is now processing about 1,400 tonnes of cane a day, according to General Manager James Oluoch.

The restart follows a much longer period of difficulty for the factory.

From a struggling mill to a private lease

Muhoroni Sugar had spent years dealing with ageing machinery, underinvestment and repeated operational problems.

Oluoch said the factory had been out of operation for almost four months before the investor began an extensive maintenance programme.

The government subsequently leased the state-owned mill to West Valley Sugar Company Ltd in 2025 under a 30-year lease.

Muhoroni now operates as Muhoroni Sugar Company 2025 Limited.

The lease was part of a wider government programme involving four public sugar companies - Muhoroni, Nzoia, Chemelil and Sony - aimed at bringing private investment into factories that had struggled with inefficiency and accumulated problems.

Under the lease terms presented to Parliament, the investor is required to invest in cane development, modernise the factory, upgrade machinery, adopt new technologies and explore diversification into areas such as cogeneration and bioethanol.

At the end of the lease, the investments are to revert to the government.

Farmers are seeing one immediate change

The most noticeable benefit so far is the payment cycle.

Oluoch said farmers delivering cane are now being paid within one week, a change that has helped put more money back into the local economy.

For cane farmers, faster payment matters because harvesting and transporting cane require immediate spending on labour, transport and farm inputs.

The money also moves beyond the farm.

Transporters earn from moving cane to the factory, workers receive wages and nearby businesses benefit when farmers and factory employees spend their income in the area.

But the machinery still needs work

The revival does not mean all of Muhoroni's technical problems have disappeared.

The company is planning another shutdown during the October rains to work on the boilers, mills and cane-preparation section.

Management says the next phase will address components that still require repair after the initial maintenance programme.

That makes continued investment important if the factory is to maintain its current milling rate.

The cane supply question

There is another challenge beyond the factory gates: having enough cane to process.

Farmer and transporter Odhiambo Ngesa, who has followed Muhoroni's sugar industry since the factory was established in the 1960s, said the mill's survival depends on keeping farmers in production.

He urged government and other stakeholders to help growers expand their farms through financing and other support, warning that inadequate cane supply could undermine the factory's recovery.

That issue is particularly important because a sugar mill can only operate sustainably when factory capacity and cane production grow together.

The overall impact in Muhoroni

Parliament was still raising concerns about Muhoroni's prolonged shutdown and the sustainability of its lease as recently as May 2026, highlighting the factory's importance to thousands of households in the sugar belt.

The latest restart therefore represents an important step, but not the end of the story.

The real measure of Muhoroni's recovery will be whether the mill can run consistently, attract enough cane, pay farmers on time and support the wider economy without returning to the cycle of breakdowns and prolonged closures that previously threatened its future.