Creating supply power for development In November 2010 Agriterra with support from a dairy expert from the Dutch dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina and upon request of SNV Kenya visited Lelbren Dairy Ltd. for the first time and concluded that  -	Professional management and good leadership offer good prospects for company growth and dairy development.
-	Though still young, the company has a strong drive to strengthen position of producers in the value chain . 
-	There seems to be a clear match between the request for advice by dairy and other experts stemming from the Dutch agribusiness  and services Agriterra can offer, including those via AgriPool. 

In January 2011 a three days company assessment took place in order to achieve an in-depth understanding of the practice and performance of Lelbren Dairy and also to jointly prepare a lean action plan as a roadmap leading to the development of a sound and investmentready business plan for Lelbren Dairy by the end of 2011.

Lelbren Dairy collects milk from a large catchment area, some of which have fairly small quantities of milk. This complicates and increases the costs of collection of milk, and the time and other resources required to manage the milk collection and delivery. Evening milk is not being collected since the low evening volumes do not justify collection. Hired vehicles are used to collect all the milk since Lelbren Dairy does not own transport vehicles. An efficient and cost-effective collection system through intake and cooling facilities near the farm members  is a critical motivation attract, encourage & maintain loyal members to ensure a reliable supply of quality raw milk. Furthermore increase in productivity/member and competitive price levels are expected to contribute to growth milk intake. 

In 2011 Lelbren aims to address specific aspects related to (1) production, (2) supply chain (3) market and (4) organisation. As stated earlier, an action plan has been developed covering numerous activities foreseen to take place in 2011 such as:
- Change and formalize the change of business entity from a Private Company  to a Public Limited Company
- Increase sense of patronage by members through meetings and improved information flows. 
- Strengthen leadership and management  of LELBREN through training, improving and finetuning strategy, structures, systems and policies and installing software for financial management
- Increasing productivity through farmers education  and training (Farmer Field Schools) and setting up of an effective and sustainable 
extension services
- Development of an investment ready business plan for improving the supply chain and its management by installing milk cooling and feedstore facilities in the rural areas
- Conduct a market study to analyze  the  market and make recommendation on the future business focus for Lelbren in terms of bulking and/or processing in order to decrease dependency on 1 buyernamely New Kcc.

Lelbren Dairy, SNV and Agriterra agreed to deliver the following targets by the end of 2011:
- Average payout in KES/ from 9000 in 2010 to 11000 in 2011. 
- Increase in active membership from 1400 (2010) to 2000 (2011)
- Average intake per day in kgs from 12000 (2010) to 15000 (2011)
- No. of farmers accessing training through farmer field schools from 400 in 2010 to 1000 in 2011
- 1 investmentready business plan for improvement of supply chain
- 1 market study with possible scenarios for strengthening position of Lelbren in the dairy value chain
- Lelbren officialy registrated as a public company limited by shares

For 2012 the following activities are foreseen:
- Training of board members
- Training of management
- Training of staff
- Set up 8 Farmer Field Schools, hold farmer field days, training of 18 model farmers
- Conduct a farmer needs assessment
- Set up an effective and sustainable extension system
- Design a cost effective milk collection plan
- Development of business plan

Lelbren Dairies Ltd (Lelbren in short) is a member owned company registered with the company registrar’s office of Kenya. The company‘s offices are located at Lessos & the company’s operations span the following districts of the Nandi County: Nandi East, Nandi Central & Wareng. The organization offers the services of bulking and transporting milk; providing training services to its membership; accessing inputs to farmers through credit, Artificial Insemination and other services. Current membership consists of approx. 1400 smallholder dairy farmers, delivering on average 12.000 lts/day.

For the years 2011 - 2015 the following key performance targets have been defined by the board:
1.	To collect and market 80000 kilos of milk per day 
2.	Improve in quality and supply chain by investing in  coolers  and milk transport truck 
3.	Process milk and market milk under LELBREN DAIRIES brand in the local and regional markets
4.	Grow the input store  business to annul turnover of 10 million per annum 
5.	Improve the asset base and construct a business premises
6.	Breeding stock sales 200 heifers per year
7.	Enhance organizational and  professional capacity of LELBREN Dairies Ltd 

The underlying action plan describes the activities foreseen in 2011 and targets mostly aspects related to increased productivity, improved supply chain management, scoping new markets and strengthening and finetuning of the company's strategies, structures, systems and policies (obviously related to its core business namely dairy). Daily operations such as intake and trading of milk have been left out of the action plan.

For the year 2012 some fundamentals need to be taken care of in order to guarantee sustainable business development of Lelbren. A project coorindator will be hired in order to implement the action plan with its multiple activities. From start-up to consolidating farmer-led company Lelbren needs to review and finetune the business strategy and enhance sense of patronage by members as well as bringing to higher level performance of management and board.

For 2013: elaborate business plan for processing plant