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A hive of activity
The battle for oil has riven a further wedge between the two new halves of the former Sudan, leaving residents in the rural South poverty-stricken and searching for income. Amanda Fisher learns answers could be hiding in a sticky, amber nectar.
- PUBLISHED: Fri 4 Jul 2014, 10:31 AM UPDATED: Tue 7 Apr 2015, 10:23 PM
Cocoa and coffee beans, exotic spices and precious metals — honey?
Africa has long produced the most exotic elements in the world’s bread basket, but now one Kenyan company is hoping to make ubiquitous honey the latest cash crop.
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“Honey has been produced there for hundreds or thousands of years probably, it’s primarily been traditional,” Honey Care CEO Madison Ayer responds to my surprise Africa is a honey-producer, in the lobby of his Dubai hotel.
Ayer is in town to promote the full-flavoured honeys sold by his company, as they start to explore the export market. If all goes accordingly, theirs would be the first African honey on UAE shelves.
“There’s not a lot of export from Africa because there’s a lot of traditional consumption, but the reason we’ve begun to look at export markets is it’s a great economic opportunity, particularly for much of the population that’s rural.”
However, Ayer says the 14-year-old company is about more than just the money, honey. They sell internationally certified fairly-traded honey by making a guarantee to smallhold farmers in rural East Africa they will purchase all honey produced for a fair wage, as long as it meets quality standards.
“Honey Care is a case study in business schools around the world, this concept of social enterprise, doing business with a profit but with a fundamental mission of resolving these social issues — in this case, economic opportunity or poverty.”
The American entrepreneur, who has been made a fellow by international social entrepreneur network Ashoka in recognition of his work with rural African communities, is one of a number of international staff at the Kenyan-grown company.
“It’s still very homegrown, it’s an East African organisation and that’s the culture and my role there is to guide it and help bring in the international quality perspective. Other than that, it’s a really bottom-up organisation… frankly everybody else in the company knows more about what we do than I do. It’s a very modern African organisation.”
Ayer, who has a background in consumer financial services, was brought in to help prop up the economics of the business that was fulfilling its social mandate at the expense of profit margins.
“[The situation] was dire enough for the board to bring me over without knowing anything about honey or farming or Africa.”
Ayer has harnessed the knowledge of honey, beekeeping expertise and rural markets that existed within Honey Care, while introducing international best practices and standards in readiness for a launch outside Africa.
“Honey is a great cash crop to be able to add in to what [farmers are] doing… everything from the type of hives the bee colony are in, to how it’s harvested, to whether or not antibiotics are used, to how it’s handled and stored all throughout the production process, traditionally that’s not met international tastes, but with improvements it now does.”
This honey supply chain has been able to throw a lifeline to the rural poor in South Sudan whose lives were plunged into turmoil during decades of independence conflict.
“It seems like we’re the only company exporting anything from South Sudan right now.”
Ayer says South Sudan used to be the second-largest producer of honey in Africa, but supply chains were cut off about a decade ago. While the old honey production infrastructure remained, nobody was producing because there were no markets — that is until Honey Care went in last year.
Most of the year was spent training the workforce and getting the honey up to par — with 95 per cent rejected in 2013. However, they have now come good.
“It really is a community thing, it’s men, it’s women. The training is all free, because… we need the supply. The first major harvest was in April this year, since we initiated this training programme, in that harvest we accepted 95 per cent of the produce.”
It has been a win-win situation for all, he says.
“There are very few, if any, real economic activities, especially ones that generate cash in South Sudan… it’s pushing close to $100,000 that’s gone into rural communities that last year and years before wasn’t going in there. That’s huge for their communities, it’s huge for their relationship (with us) — ultimately, all of this is built on trust.”
It’s not all plain sailing though. Honey Care has had to pull out of certain communities when it transpired village chiefs were levying taxes on farmers to store the honey at a central storage point — often the chief’s house.
“Village by village we learn how to work, but in some cases we can’t and if we come in and try and exert a policy or try and create ways around the chief, that’s just going to exacerbate the problem. Anywhere we work, we don’t just go in and say ‘Okay, we’re working with this community’, it’s a relationship that builds.”
Production has gone from zero to 50 tonnes in South Sudan, he says, but if Honey Care is going to be able to keep their commitment to buy all quality produce, they need more markets.
One such market is the lower-income domestic market, who have previously not been able to afford honey.
“Since we’ve expanded this production capability… with different types of honey… now we have this wide variety we can also start supplying lower income markets in Kenya as well.”
While many in the developed world take honey for granted, it is an aspirational product in much of Africa, a mystical product that is a tasty elixir for all manner of ailments — critical in a market where medicine can be hard to come by. “The majority of African consumers can’t access pure honey on a regular basis, it’s something that’s critical for coughs and colds… it’s an immune system booster.”
Honey Care is working to bring out cheaper single servings of honey, that will be available in the local kiosks in the slums.
Most of the honey in Africa is either overly-processed to the point of no longer being beneficial, or diluted with water or sugar syrup, Ayer says.
“It’s really easy to adulterate honey… that’s okay if you’re using it just for the honey taste but if you actually want it for its natural health characteristics, it’s gone.”
Troublingly, that is likely to be the case on UAE supermarket shelves as well, he says.
An American study last year revealed three quarters of honey bought in the supermarket wasn’t “real honey”, but synthesized.
“For sure that ‘honey’ is here in Dubai, but what Honey Care is producing is this truly 100 per cent true honey, it’s all organic, there’s not pesticides within a thousand miles, its traceable back to the village or the hive where it’s coming from, we have visibility the whole way.”
And that should be of reassurance in a country where “honey is such an awesome part of the culture”.
“In the GCC, honey is such an integral part of the culture and the diet… there’s a more refined honey palate here than there is in the US, and that makes it such a great product to share.”
Ayer is hoping to have Honey Care products in mid-range supermarkets in the UAE by the end of the year.