As Chief Commercial Officer, Willy Kimani oversaw one of Naivas's boldest chapter. He was on the board that was tasked with deciding where Kenya's biggest supermarket chain would strike next. When the company needed a face for its ambitions, it gave him the cameras.

In September 2020, he announced a Jumia Food partnership, home delivery running out of the Prestige Plaza Foodmarket branch on Ngong Road. The service reached Ngong Road, Hurlingham, Kileleshwa, Lavington: addresses where convenience had always sold itself.

Then, without warning, Willy vanished from the company. No word given to the public that had watched him build.

In December 2023, Willy reappeared and opened a shop in Buru Buru, on the eastern edge of the city, the opposite end from every address he had once courted with delivery vans.

He called it Jaza Supermarket.

There was none of Naivas's old ambition in it. No bakery, butchery, or loyalty card. Only the essentials, stocked tight, priced to the bone, and planted exactly where the people already lived.

By mid-2024, Jaza had crept into Kayole. Into Githurai 44 and 45. Into Gachie, Embakasi, Chokaa. Every one a dense estate teeming with everyday shoppers.

This was Naivas's own oldest trick, the one a young David Mukuha had stumbled onto on a desperate drive to Machakos back in 2004: go where the giants cannot be bothered to look, and win simply by arriving first and offering better prices.

This story first appeared on episode two of Kenyan Founders, The History and Business Strategy of Naivas Supermarket.