In July, leading tea, coffee and botanicals producer, James Finlay, reached agreement to purchase the tea and yerba mate [a herbal tea originated from South America] extraction assets of Paraguayan food ingredients business, Natural Instant Foods. Finlays plans to move the assets to Kenya, to serve as a small-scale production line and pilot plant at its Saosa tea extraction facility at Kericho. This will enhance Finlays’ R&D capacity by allowing Saosa to offer sampling and small-batch capability, enabling it to respond rapidly to the changing needs of its global customer base. Saosa is one of the world’s only extraction facilities located on a tea farm, giving Finlays the unusual ability to extract from fresh leaf on the day of harvesting to create premium tea extracts that are rich in bioactive compounds, thereby tapping into growing consumer demand for healthy, natural, and sustainable beverages.
