Farmers in Taita Taveta earned Sh45 million in milk sales to Brookside Dairy last year. Brookside's general manager John Gethi said efforts to boost the growth of dairy farming have been hampered by poorly maintained roads.

"We decided to build a milk cooling centre at Wumingu, on top of the Taita Hills, to store 10,000 litres of milk per day as part of efforts to encourage growth of smallholder dairy farming," Gethi said in a speech read on his behalf by Davis Mwangoma, the processor's regional manager for Coast. Mwangoma was speaking at the commissioning of the Ndii-Mgambonyi road by the Kenya Rural Roads Authority.