Ten Senses is helping to put African-grown cashews and macadamia nuts into the hands of citizens around the world. The company’s mission is to ensure that thousands of smallholder farmers who grow the nuts are paid a fair price for their goods, by cutting out the middlemen.
Ten Senses buys nuts from thousand of farmers in Kenya and Rwanda, who it also supports through basic farming and cultivation skills. The hundreds of workers the company employs — many of whom are women — to shell nuts at its packing plant outside of Nairobi are provided with good jobs.
Through the Seed Transformation Program, managing director Frank Omondi learned how to better understand the company’s value chains — and the huge demand for organic and fair trade certified products. Inspired by the design thinking approach pioneered at Stanford, Ten Senses is now embarking on an ambitious growth plan to supplement supplies from smallholder farmers through the development of large-scale farms in Tanzania and Ethiopia. This expansion will allow them to meet demand and ensure the company’s financial strength, both of which will allow the business to continue its core mission.
Leadership
Frank Omondi is the managing director of Ten Senses Africa, an East African company that manages the value chain of fair trade and organic products such as cashew and macadamia nuts from small holder farmers for export. Prior to joining Ten Senses, Omondi worked for a decade in the tourism industry, including as the marketing strategy advisor to the minister of tourism for Kenya, for a Nairobi-based tour company, and at an ecolodge tourist destination in Tsavo. He was also a leading wildlife policy advocate for several NGOs. He holds a degree in wildlife management from Moi University in Kenya.
Omondi participated in the Stanford Seed Transformation Program in East Africa in 2016.
