These are companies involved in the planting, farming, harvesting and production of tea such as: Kenya Tea Development Agency Limited: Administration of the small scale farming sub-sector, currently taking their green leaf to 68 tea factories.
Small-scale tea growers, estimated at 400, 000, process and market their tea through 68 tea factories under the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), while large scale tea growers (tea estates) process and market their tea through 39 tea factories operated on individual private basis. KTDA renders managerial, production, transportation and marketing services which include management of tea factories, green leaf transportation, procurement of production inputs, marketing of processed tea and payment of tea proceeds to the growers.
Currently there are 84 producer members. The companies are involved in production, trading and value addition. Producers are represented by brokers at the Weekly Tea Auction held in Mombasa. The factory/farmers who own the registration mark send a sample of their produce to brokers in Mombasa who then send the samples to buyers for evaluation before the auction day. They then meet with the buyers at the weekly auction for trading.
