Press release

Malnutrition remains a key public health concern in Rwanda after recent Demographic and Health Survey results showed that chronic malnutrition affects 38% of children under the age of five, resulting in stunting.

In an effort to address this concern, AIF Rwanda through its state-of-the-art facility is now producing highly nutritious porridge flours (with added milk, vitamins and minerals) targeting vulnerable population segments such as pregnant and breast-feeding mothers, older infants and young children more especially in the first 1,000 days of their lives.

Besides its commercial brand ‘Nootri’, the $60m Plant which has been operational since November 2016 also has fully fledged nutrition programmes with the Government of Rwanda where it produces Shisha Kibondo for the most impoverished communities and World Food Programme where it is producing relief foods that are being distributed as far as Somalia and South Sudan.

Sitting on 40,000m² of land and employing over 300 staff, the plant has an annual production capacity of 45,000 tons making it one of the largest nutrition factory sites in the East African region.

Commenting on the plant’s steady progress, AIF Rwanda CEO Amar Ali said, “Our progress has been made possible by the favourable business environment in Rwanda and strong support from the Government.”

“We are deeply committed towards investing in our future in Rwanda because we strongly believe that this country has a wealth of opportunities to offer. We will continue to deliver on our strategy of producing high quality, locally sourced, affordable nutritious products for all Rwandans as well as to East Africa,” Amar added.

Already working with over 9,000 large and small grain and cereal farmers, AIF Rwanda is keen to capitalize on growth opportunities in the fast-growing demand for nutritious foods for the domestic market and exports especially to Uganda and the DRC.

AIF Rwanda is a joint venture between the Government of Rwanda and a consortium of four key international partners Royal DSM, Dutch development bank-FMO, CDC Group plc (the UK government’s Development Finance Institution) and IFC.