*Originally featured in the Financial Standard, March 31, 2026, by XN Iraki.*
What drives an MIT-educated economist and former UN official to trade the comforts of Nairobi’s leafy suburbs for the rugged countryside of Nyandarua? For James Karuga, the answer started with a single decision made during a drought in 1984: buy one Jersey cow and one Guernsey cow, for a combined Sh3,000, and start farming in Karen.
Karuga’s inspiration came from efficient family farms he’d observed while living in Switzerland and France. He and his wife built that initial pair of cows into a Karen operation of 55 grade cows and more than 120 employees.
But as real estate began to swallow the farming lands of Karen, Karuga made a deliberate choice: sell the Karen property and use the capital to build a modern factory back in his home area of Ol Joro Orok, Nyandarua County. It wasn’t a retreat from farming – it was a shift toward industrialisation, choosing value addition over simply producing raw milk.
That’s the core of Eldoville’s competitive position today: artisanal cheese, premium yoghurt, and ice cream, not raw milk. The operation holds ISO 22000 and HACCP certifications and serves high-end clients including the airline industry and schools, and has since diversified into vegetable and potato cube preparation.
It hasn’t been without setbacks – difficulty accessing credit, the collapse of major retailers like Uchumi and Nakumatt, and losses tied to foreign machinery suppliers. Karuga, educated at Alliance, MIT, Sussex, and Oxford, is now seeking strategic investors to take the business further – a global education applied resolutely to a local, and personal, ambition.
