Muhumuza mints millions from the milk business
At a young age of 26 years, Deus Muhumuza owns two milk vending shops in Kyaliwajjala and Kira Municipality on the outskirts of Kampala city.
This is no mean achievement for someone who only came to the city seven years ago.
“I came from Ibanda district after completing A-levels. I did not have money to proceed to university so a friend of mine in Kampala accepted to accommodate me,” he says.
Before he went into the milk business, Muhumuza did a number of odd jobs to earn a living like slashing compounds, helping out on construction sites.
“The pay was not good and it was irregular. I realized that to survive and make some good money I had to do something serious,” he says.
This is where the idea of vending milk came in. Growing up in the cattle herding area of Ibanda, he was not new to the idea of selling milk only that in urban areas like Kira, the dynamics were different.
“Where I used to work on one of the construction site there was man who used to deliver milk to one of the engineers on the site. I befriended him and later he revealed to me that the milk business was a good one in the city. He accepted to mentor me,” he says.
At first Muhumuza used a bicycle he had borrowed from a friend to transport the milk in big metallic cans. He would move door to door selling milk.
He says he started by purchasing 20 litres of milk at Shs 900 per litre from milk trucks and farms. He would resell the same milk at Shs 1200 per litre earning a profit of Shs 300 per litre.
Within two months he had expanded to 60 litres of milk per day, guaranteeing him a net profit of at least Shs 18,000.
“After some time I got so many customers and orders would overwhelm me. I decided to rent a place where I could store the milk but also continue with my vending,” he says.
He got a small kiosk in Kira, bought a chest freezer in which he stored the milk.
With time, he says, the business started booming that is when he decided to open another branch in Kyaliwajjala, which is also doing well.
“Today I sell a total of 1000 litres of milk per day in the two branches which gives me a profit of between Shs 300,000 and Shs 350,000 per day,” he boasts.
This translates into Shs 9 million a month.
Besides milk, Muhumuza sells bread and other snacks in the shops.
Challenges
The unpredictable changes in price of milk affects his projections. These are caused by the changing weather patterns.
“In the dry season, milk is scarce and sometimes we fail to meet the demand. This means the prices have to go up,” he says.
Secondly milk being a perishable product that requires to be kept in a refrigerator all the time. But the unreliable power supply sometimes makes him make losses when milk goes bad.
“There is a day when I lost more than 100 litres because of power failure. That was a big loss,” he says
Advice
He advises young people not to despise any job and to be able to taken on any task that comes your way.
“I worked at building sites and used to vend milk moving from door to door. Some people used to despise me and call me all sorts of names but this did not deter me because I knew what my goal is,” he says.
He says if you want to succeed in any business, you need to stay focused on your goal since there are many distractions that may derail you. “People come and tell you so many things and give you so many ideas. Learn how to sieve these ideas,” he says.
