NAIROBI: Global raw tobacco merchant, Alliance One International on Wednesday announced the commencement of a strategic process to scale down its operations in Kenya. Alliance One Tobacco (Kenya) Limited is a subsidiary of Alliance One International, with its corporate head office in Morrisville, North Carolina, USA.
Alliance One International’s first purchases of Kenyan tobacco were in 1983 and the Company has had a legal presence in the country since 1990. Its core operations involve sponsoring farmers to produce tobacco mainly in Migori County in Western Kenya, processing and exporting to the international market.
Alliance One International has attributed the need to scale down its Kenyan operations to the substantial shift in the global supply and demand of Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco. With the prevailing slump in the tobacco market, Alliance One International has now embarked on a strategic process to align and reposition its operations.
Speaking in Nairobi, Alliance One Tobacco Kenya Managing Director, Francis Chege, said the Company will maintain its legal presence in Kenya. It will continue to have some minimal presence at its Thika processing base with a limited number of staff to continue marketing its tobacco inventory.
One is proud to have been a part of the tobacco industry in Kenya for the past 25 years, but unfortunately customer demand for the Kenyan supply has declined and the Company has been forced to realign its operations to changing market conditions said Chege.
