The African Agriculture Fund (AAF), managed by Phatisa, has invested in General Plastics, a manufacturer of packaging products servicing food, beverage and agro-chemical sectors in Kenya and the broader East Africa region.

Paul Wythe, Senior Partner at Phatisa, said: “Packaging, as an integral part of the food value chain, provides the means to protect, promote, transport and relay product, ingredients and nutritional information – all key to providing end-users with tamper-free products they can trust.”

“Throughout the investment process, we have engaged actively with the management team and we look forward to working together to enhance and expand General Plastics operations across East Africa,” he said.

General Plastics is a family business that was founded in 1977 and has since steadily grown into Kenya’s foremost manufacturer of plastic packaging products.

Today it operates out of two ISO certified production sites in Nairobi and employs over 900 staff.

The company specialises in four production processes: extrusion blow moulding; injection moulding; thin-wall injection moulding; and PET injection stretch blow moulding.

The production facility utilises a wide range of polymers and pigments as raw material to produce advanced, cost-effective and environmentally friendly packaging options for local consumption.

Rashik Shah, Founder and Managing Director, said: ‘”The partnership with Phatisa will allow us to reinforce our plans to expand into the region. Local and regional consumer demand is increasing for functional packaging that is affordable, convenient and suitably branded. With this new capital injection, we believe GPL is well placed to benefit from these growing trends.”

This is the eighth AAF portfolio company and affirms Phatisa’s standing as the foremost African private equity agriculture and food investor.

Phatisa is committed to delivering a new asset class, development equity, a blend of private equity and development finance to accelerate sustainable development on the continent.