We Do Bamboo Featured in the largest Netherlands' newspaper De Telegraaf

This week, Dutch national newspaper De Telegraaf spent a day with us in Kenya to take a closer look at the story behind We Do Bamboo.

The resulting article follows our founder, Arthur de Leeuw, from one of the bamboo growers supplying us to our production floor in Nairobi, where locally sourced bamboo is processed into composite building materials.

The story also goes back much further.

We Do Bamboo coverage in Dutch press

Before starting We Do Bamboo, Arthur worked as an Africa correspondent for RTL in the Netherlands and later built an online platform for home service professionals. Years later, the idea of returning to Africa eventually led to something completely different: building a bamboo processing and manufacturing business in Kenya.

Why Kenya?

Over the past fifteen years, bamboo has been widely promoted in Kenya as a promising crop for farmers.

But planting bamboo is only one part of the equation. Without a reliable market, growers have little reason to expand production.

That gap is one of the reasons We Do Bamboo was started.

We source bamboo from Kenyan growers and create demand for it in two ways: by manufacturing bamboo composite building materials locally in Nairobi, and by processing raw bamboo for customers outside Kenya.

For farmers, this means there is an actual commercial market for the bamboo they grow.

Capturing the We Do Bamboo story

From bamboo farm to factory floor

During the visit, journalist Rudolph Elmendorp joined us at the farm of one of our growers before continuing to our factory in Nairobi.

There, bamboo is processed into powder and combined with recycled plastic and other materials. The mixture is extruded into boards that are used for decking, cladding and other building applications.

The finished products are currently used across Kenya, including private homes, commercial projects and hospitality developments.

At the same time, processed bamboo in forms such as chips and powder is also supplied to customers abroad.

Building a manufacturing business is rarely a straight line

The article does not only focus on the positive side of the story.

It also covers the challenges that come with building a new manufacturing operation: production setbacks, training, quality control and the investment required to get a factory running.

That is part of the process.

We are still building, improving and learning every day. But seeing Kenyan-grown bamboo move from a farmer's field into finished products and international supply chains is exactly why we started.

It was great to have an outside perspective on that journey. Link to full article (paywall): https://www.telegraaf.nl/financieel/arthur-49-was-oorlogscorrespondent-en-is-nu-bamboebaron-van-kenia-ik-dacht-even-wat-heb-ik-nou-gedaan/159262543.html