BY NDUGU ABISAI (Daily Nation)
Primarily from Nile perch, it is gathered from lakeside towns such as Obunga and Mbita along Lake Victoria, from filleting traders. Once collected, the skins undergo salting for preservation. This helps prevent decay and prepares the hides for tanning
Rilly’s Leather Ltd is an enterprise that stands on two stilts: heritage and the need to give meaning and purpose to waste leather. Before starting the business, Lilian Nyamoita—the founder and director—ran an ice block plant at Kibuye Market in Kisumu. She supplied ice blocks to trucks transporting fish fillets from Lake Victoria. It was in the course of her deliveries that she noticed discarded fish skins at the lakeside, and was inspired to start processing fish leather. She observed that fish mongers had no solution—despite processing large volumes of fish—to deal with fish skin.
“The waste was a stinking eyesore. I approached my husband with a question. ‘What can we do with the fish skin I see discarded on the lakeshore, can we collect and process it into leather, maybe make something out of it?’” She says. Fish skin was a novel leather tanning idea that would gather steam later on in her business journey. Rilly’s Leather story doesn’t start there. That is just but one part of their genesis. The other part glosses over several generations of a traditional tanning business.
“I got the skills from my mother-in-law, who ran a family leather tanning business for years. She used buckets to tan the leather. I watched her do it, and that’s where I first learned,” explains Lilian.
Her husband would later sponsor her to take a short course in Thika where she gained advanced knowledge in leather handling and tanning—turning the venture into a profitable entity. At the tannery, there are still midsized blue buckets for the culture. “This is part of our story—humble as it may appear, our business started here before all this automation came into play,” says the business woman.
In 2015, she set up a tanning business not just to fill a gap for locally manufactured leather products, but also to deal with the menace of waste leather that was commonplace in their Suneka surroundings. “I started with cow and goat skins because they were scattered all over. Dogs used to carry them from homes, especially after weddings or other functions where animals had been slaughtered. I would ask people, ‘Can you bring me the skin?’ Then we would tan them.”
The tannery is set up on a shared space in the outskirts of Kisii town, strategically placed near a slaughterhouse where Rilly’s Leather has two operational commercial-scale leather tanning drums. The journey of transforming raw hides into high-quality leather begins with careful collection of the hides and skins. For cow and goat hides, the team sources directly from the slaughterhouse located just a kilometre away. Fish skin— primarily Nile perch—is gathered from lakeside towns such as Obunga and Mbita along Lake Victoria, from the filleting traders.
Once collected, the skins undergo salting for preservation. This helps prevent decay and prepares the hides for tanning. The salted skins are then transferred into traditional tanning drums at the facility. Here, Lilian and her team use Mimosa, a natural vegetable-based tanning agent, to treat the hides.
The process results in what is known in the leather industry as wet blue, a semi-processed stage of leather that is soft, flexible, and ready for further finishing. “At this stage, the product has been turned to leather and can be sold for further processing by other handlers. We have markets and clients that buy this beyond our borders.”
With their current equipment, they are able to process skins up to this wet blue stage. From there, they partner with external institutions such as Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI) in Kisumu, which is a two-hour drive from their facility. These partners apply finishes and dyes to the leather that transforms it into a variety of colours and textures suitable for high-quality products.
Once the leather is finished, it is transported back to the workshop in Hema, where it is handcrafted into a wide range of items—school shoes, official footwear, enforcement boots, sandals, belts, wallets, handbags, clutch bags, and key holders.
Uniqueness of fish skin leather products
The novelty for their use of fish skin is both a great selling point and an industry unbeatable uniqueness. Lilian speaks of the aesthetics of fish skin leather and how pairing it up with other types of leather births durable products. “The shoes made from fish leather are unique. Even if you wear them, somebody will look at you from top to bottom. They don’t wear out easily, and so last for a long time. That is what makes them stand out.”
The enterprise has another key product of interest. “Our niche product at the shop is shoes for the physically disabled. We realised that this is a neglected group that was rarely thought about in the making of shoes. They have unique needs that call for customisation. That is where we fit in. This is both a business and a means of giving back to the community that supports our business.”
KCIC’s entry
Lilian first heard about the Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) while attending a workshop in Nairobi. “A friend mentioned that KCIC was supporting businesses with grants and offered to connect me. He shared the details, and we went on to write a proposal. When our application was accepted, our enterprise was onboarded into the SWIFT programme.”
The initiative has played a crucial role in the growth of Rilly’s Leather. The support has been key to the company’s acquisition of essential certifications like KEBS and NEMA. This is important because they can now trade on a larger scale. “KEBS certification means we can stock our shoes in supermarkets and big stores,” She adds. Consequently, the business has transitioned from a small enterprise to a limited company. The programme has also provided machinery that has significantly boosted their production capacity. Through this help, they have expanded their product line to include enforcement boots and larger leather bags, two products they couldn’t make before due to equipment limitations.
What plans do they have for the future? “In the next two to three years, we hope to reach global markets. We’ve already covered Kenya and some East African countries like Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. I’ve attended exhibitions there and here in Kenya too. They really helped market me. We want to build a proper production plant, where our machines won’t be rained on. We need modern equipment for processes like fixing soles, and we dream of making our own rubber soles here in Kenya. If we can do that, it will change everything.” Upcycling waste has had great meaning for the enterprise. It is the intersection of business and conservation and for them, this is akin to killing two birds with one stone.
