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Over the last 20 years through her companies, Eden Harvest and Highland Farmers, a food wholesaler. Bertha Kabuto has supplied supermarkets, restaurants, schools, military establishments and universities. She fulfills large national contracts and has supplied the largest organizations such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
Today, her company supplies Rwanda's largest five star hotel, Serena Hotel, with most of its fresh food and vegetables. Her company is registered at the general headquarters with the FAO as a Rwandan retainer supplier.
In 1980, Bertha graduated in the Education field at Kyambogo Teachers College in Uganda and then went on to teach Agriculture in Kenya. She grew up in exile which is where she pursued her education and career.
Given her educational background, Bertha felt that agriculture was the obvious choice when she decided to become and entrepreneur. Starting out as a small shop owner, Ms. Kabuto has grown her natural foodstuffs business to a considerable level in the local arena. She is now looking to export her products to take her business to the next level. To ensure a good supply chain, she mobilizes local women's associations to prodcue the food as well as operates a supermarket to provide packaging and distribution of the produce.
Bertha intentionally contributes considerable effort to uplift the livelihood of her suppliers by providing fair pay, loans and training in good farming methods. Most of these women are widows of the genocide, single mothers and HIV/AIDS victims.
For the future Bertha plans on expanding her food business by adding value and exxportation. The value addition is solar drying which enables her to export dried organic foods. During her visit to Oklahoma, she hopes to build a network of contacts and research current markets to help her achieve this goal.
Bertha has used her profits to invest in real estate and now owns a small piece of prime property in the City Centre of Kiglai and numerous plots of land dispersed around the capital. The properties are owned and managed by another one of Bertha's companies and have plans to develop 80 residential housing tracks once financing is secured.
