Being an entrepreneur is not always easy, but for Tropical Lush CEO, Adarsh Shah, it’s a labor of love. “About three years ago, we moved from a small production kitchen to our current premises, which is larger. Our current facility has allowed us to manage logistics better, increase storage and improve our growth trajectory. Managing a growing business in Nairobi has its challenges, but we love it.”
As a fresh fruit juice business with increasing demand from new customers, challenges pop up. One being shelf life. “We started gaining new customers and reaching people farther away from our production facility, and therefore needed to improve the quality of our product over a longer period of time.” To increase shelf life, Adarsh consulted PFS volunteers who provided recommendations for new juice formulations. “The shelf life of the product used to range from two to three days, but due to improved formulation, we’re now at four to five days. One of the best things from this past year is that we’ve received great feedback from our customers and we attribute that to the improved formulation that PFS volunteers helped us with."
Tropical Lush has been working with PFS for two years and has gone through a lot of changes over the years. “We’ve hired new, highly skilled managers, doubled production and increased the number of deliveries to our customers. Having Johnson from PFS as a resource has been very helpful. He’s been on the phone with us to help when issues arise; it’s almost like having a partner in our business that can help me think through things.” Tropical Lush plans to move into a larger production facility in the near future where they can continue to grow the business. Until then, Adarsh still makes time to deliver product himself to clients around town, “I really enjoy the day-to-day and it’s always fun to meet clients face to face.”