Elgon Nuts LLC is a startup registered in Utah in 2021 and operationalized in 2024 to share the health benefits of macadamia nuts with our US neighbors. It is backed by a family with a lifetime of dedication to doing good. The journey to where the business currently is started with a desire in the late 1990s to do something that would eventually help farmers in the rural communities in western Kenya where Joseph and Gladys Sitati grew up to earn more from their efforts. The vision was given spiritual impetus when they accepted a call to fulltime service in their Church. This gave them the opportunity to see a bigger picture of how best to support those rural communities, by connecting them to a higher value market.
They learned that the US consumes 15% of the global annual macadamia nuts supply while producing about 5% or one third of it on its territory, mainly in Hawaii. With the market forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10%, they set up Elgon Nuts LLC to participate in helping to bridge the supply gap of 10% of demand by importing macadamia nuts produced by those rural communities and processed by the organization they had set up in Kenya, thus enhancing the availability of this premium health product to US consumers. In pursuing this vision, they invested all their resources in the business, and in retirement from full time Church service, are giving it all their efforts. They believe in the business and are committed and prepared to do everything within their ability to see it to success. Joseph trained and worked professionally as a mechanical engineer and Gladys as a high school teacher and are supported by their son Andrew, a professional property manager who also lives in Tooele. Their involvement with macadamias started in the year 2000.
