Materials & Supplies

Firms Making a Fortune Selling Ready-Mix Concrete

Ready-mix concrete boosts project efficiency by reducing on-site mixing expenses and time.

Updated on

August 7, 2018

Alliance Concrete Kenya — Alliance is producing ready-mix concrete using Savannah Cement products. PHOTO | COURTESY

Kenyan cement manufacturers and dealers are increasingly venturing into the ready-mix concrete delivery business to meet the growing need for the solution among developers putting up large-scale constructions.

Ready mix concrete is a factory-prepared mixture of cement, sand, and aggregate, which is delivered to a construction site for immediate use.

The material, which is prepared to a customer’s specifications, seeks to enhance construction project efficiencies by cutting on-site concrete mixing costs and time.

With this solution, all a customer needs to do is prepare the foam work and ask a supplier to deliver the concrete already pre-mixed on-site. The product offers an alternative to buying materials – cement, sand and ballast – and bringing in workers to mix and pour.

Aware of the rising demand for the product, Alliance Concrete Limited has partnered with Savannah Cement to provide ready-mix concrete for building sites in Nairobi and its environs.

The company has invested Sh600 million into the construction of two batching plants; one in Kitengela, and the other one in Dagoretti – from where it will be producing ready-mix concrete using Savannah Cement products.

Each facility is fitted with a 120 cubic meters per hour batching plant. The concrete firm has two boom pumps with over 40-metre pumping capacity, two fixed pumps, and a fleet of 15 concrete truck mixers.

“After having spent almost two decades in the ready-mix concrete market in Turkey, which is the biggest ready-mix concrete producer in Europe, we brought our expertise to Kenya to meet the challenging demands of its booming construction sector by using our large, modern fleet and fully automatic plants situated strategically in Nairobi,” Alliance Concrete general manager Kemal Gocmen said in a statement.

Savannah Cement sees the partnership as a means to explore alternative market opportunities to guarantee its growth in an increasingly competitive market.

“This constitutes increasing the production volume of ready mix concrete deliveries to complement the existing bagged and bulk cement sales,” Savannah Cement CEO Ronald Ndegwa said.

Alliance Concrete will be competing for business with Bamburi Cement and East African Portland Cement, both of which produce ready-mix concrete and deliver the same to construction sites by their concrete mixer trucks.

In 2015, the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development disclosed that it was drafting a law that would obligate builders of houses with more than three floors to use premix concrete supplied by cement makers as a means to ensure quality workmanship.

The ministry said the regulations were aimed at reversing the trend of buildings collapsing due to the use of poorly mixed concrete.

Construction Kenya understands that the draft law had received unanimous support from key industry players after research found that buildings were collapsing across the country mainly due to the use of weak concrete mixture and sub-standard materials.

Although the proposal is yet to see the light of day, a growing number of builders are now sourcing premix concrete from suppliers as a means to save time and costs.

When preparing concrete on site, a contractor hires a mixer and workers to mix cement, sand, and gravel to get the required ratio – a task that takes three to four hours of intensive labour.

“However, with the ready mix concrete we deliver to the contractor a finished product saving them time, and once delivered it can be applied immediately thus saving on cumulative costs,” says Gocmen.