Agro-Chemical and Food Company Limited is an applied industrial Biotechnology Plant. It was incorporated in 1978 as a Joint Venture between the Government of Kenya through the Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation (ICDC) and the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) on one hand and the International Investment Corporation (Mehta Group) on the other.
The plant was initially set up to produce Power Alcohol and Bakers’ yeast from cane molasses using one of the best technologies in the world – Vogelbusch of Austria.
ACFC faced lots of difficulties in marketing Power Alcohol in the initial years due to resistance by oil companies in blending it with petrol. For the first three years of starting commercial production, capacity utilization remained as low as 30%. Sales improved subsequently and reached 75% of the plant capacity in 1988.
By the efforts of Mehta Group, export market was found in Europe in 1990/1991 and the company diversified its production from Power Alcohol to Industrial Alcohol and other grades of alcohol.
It is heartening to note that a number of production and sales records have been achieved since 1991 in spite of several constraints.
