Sina Gerald, Owner, Founder and Managing Director of Entreprise Urwibutso has built a significant name that has gone beyond Rwanda in Agro processing.
He has diverse interests including spanning restaurants, bakeries, a juice and wine factory, a school and extensive land holdings.
Since his work experience in Agro processing with the inception of, Entreprise Urwibutso in 1983, he employs over 400 people.
At the beginning, he had nothing as startup and presently he is the famous rich farmer in Rwanda Sina Gerard’s story is the best example that that shows that Agriculture is a decent profession that enables investors to make money.
He started with a small bakery in 1983 and the main inspiration was from his parents who were also farmers.
“My parents were farmers and I baked products from the farm”, Sina reminisces. After a while Sina Gerard ventured into higher forms of value addition by making juices. “Agashya” is perhaps the best known amongst the family of drinks by the entrepreneur while the “Akabanga” hot sauce a very popular item is now set to break into export markets.” Sina said.
“With time my products become popular and that enabled my businesses to grow”, he recalls.
Once Sina Gerard’s company known as Enterprise Urwibwutso was placed on a sound footing, he diversified his portfolio to include new ones like manufacture of banana wines which he named “Akarusho”.
Sina Gerard is a true business visionary. One way of ascertaining such a claim is his firm belief in what education can do to the sustainability of his rapidly growing business. He believes that proper education for his employees is a key driver of taking his growing empire to the next level. Sina Gerard Educational Centre which is a modern educational institution that includes nursery, primary and secondary sections should be seen in this light.
“I finally thought it is useful to support the school project since I saw the need to be responsible for my employees and their families. They work for my company and I make a profit out of their work. The least I can do for them is to give back something to them. That is what I am doing with the school project. The schooling is free and the children can attend from nursery to high school”. He noted.
“It benefits the children and parents but in a way it also benefits me. Because, I would rather have educated staff than uneducated ones”. If anything education is at the forefront of propelling Enteprise Urubwitso since offering extension services to farmers that enables them to produce more for less is a corner stone of the company’s success so far.” He said.
Sina said that there is increased capacity over time that gives room for exports. But that is now very possible since we brought in experiences from other countries that have enabled us to achieve the best results. This makes me very proud. My dream is that Rwandan farmers should aspire to deliver the best quality just the way others are doing it in the first world countries”. Sina Gerard noted.
He says that the increased capacity of his contracted framers places them at a vantage position of looking beyond his company for sustaining their livelihoods.
“My company’s production philosophy is premised on delivering the best products that can match the standards in some of the most sophisticated markets. We can do this through education and training. For me I do that through experiential learning from other countries. This exposure enables our operations to be better over time. That is my plan and vision for the future”. He added.
Besides Agriculture and Agro-processing that employs hundreds of Rwandans, his enterprise also has introduced more services in helping the country expand the vocational training (TVET) in different disciplines.
“We teach hair dressing and employ graduates, we teach tailoring and we have a workshop that employs finalists, we have construction school and we employ graduates. Recently we have constructed a catholic church using our own resources, we have a furniture training class, we have a welding class of metal tools and a mechanic class, etc. We involve and value youths in College Foundation Sina Gerald.
The Express News
