Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
2 September 2002
(Page 2 of 2)
I think the important thing for us to do is, first of all, to perfect the model that we have tried to develop in Kenya, make sure that we reach some saturation point and check that we are not overextending ourselves. I think Uganda is the next most logical step for us. We are now slowly building alliances with people in Lesotho and Swaziland.
This has emerged from the WSSD for us. And the idea now is to look at things strategically and decide, No. 1, where the money is going to come from and No. 2, who is actually going to go out and manage these projects.
How does the price of your honey compare with a pot of the old-style honey and what's the competition? Are people buying it, and are they satisfied?
Absolutely. I think people are buying primarily because of quality. But the other amazing thing that we have found is that social marketing does have a value in Kenya. People would like to know that their honey is being produced by communities and that it is supporting communities back at home. So, on those two bases, the community aspect of the work that we do, and the quality, people are absolutely opting for our honey, every time.
So how much is a pot of your honey? How much does Honey Care Africa honey cost?
How much do we sell it at? We sell it at approximately US$2.20 a jar.
How does that compare with your competitors?
We are comparable with international honey. It is probably about one and a half times the price of the local crude honey.
And that doesn't put people off, the fact that it's more expensive?
I think Kenyans are becoming far more savvy than they were probably 20 or 30 years ago. They want a high quality product. They have Australian honey sitting on the same supermarket shelves and honey from the United States. You have to convince them and give them a good reason why they should opt for Kenyan honey versus honey from outside.
What do Kenyans primarily use honey for?
That's an interesting question. There are 42 different tribes in Kenya. First and foremost, if you were a young man and you wanted to get married in many communities, without 5kg of honey to take to your bride-to-be, you would not get married.
Apart from the traditional and cultural value that honey has in Kenya, it is used for sweetening tea and pastries, but also on bread or just eating on its own. The medicinal value of honey, of course, cannot be underscored for African communities. It has been there all the way through and it continues to be revived as a result of the organic movement and other movements in North America that seem to be filtering through and reminding people of the value honey had in their communities before.
How much support do you get from the Ministry of Agriculture?
It was initially quite challenging with the Ministry of Agriculture, but we have now broken down a lot of barriers. We are working very closely with them in Kitui and Taita-Taveta Districts and in Kwale District and a whole number of other areas. The district bee keeping officers and my project officers share motorbikes and drive around to villages together, so things have improved a lot.
What were those initial barriers?
I think because they were very closely involved with the introduction of the Kenya Top Bar hive that had established a hegemony in every single village about who had the information. But that has now changed, because we have gotten them trained, we have given the proof that you can see bigger, better harvests and your farmers are getting paid more.
So that must mean that you have managed, or are managing, to change the mindset of the officials, but how did you change the way in which communities think? Why did they accept your method, what was in it for them?
The biggest thing was going out and doing a lot of demonstrations and ensuring as much as possible that we were able to provide training to the farmers; and then putting your money where your mouth was, offering a guaranteed market to the farmers, to buy back whatever honey they were going to produce.
And we have a simple process: it's called money for honey, cash payments on the spot at the farm gate for the farmers.
After the first harvest or the second harvest, people finally began to believe that here is a private company with a different way of doing business. Once they see the money in their pockets, things change quite dramatically!
And has honey made you money? Are you a rich man now?
We are hoping to turn a profit at the end of this year. It's been about two and a half years of very hard work, reinvesting our salaries every month, but I think at the end of this year we should be able to make a breakthrough.
Who are 'we'?
We, at Honey Care, are myself and two other likeminded investors who I coaxed into making investments of US$150,000 each and promised to look after their money. They are two other Kenyans, apart from myself.
So it's a wholly Kenyan-financed, Kenyan-operated project?
100 percent Kenyan, all the way through.
Who thought of the name of your company, Honey Care Africa?
I think it was a combined effort. We wanted to put across three simple things. We were dealing with a particular commodity, which was honey. We were based in Africa geographically and we were trying to demonstrate the fact that this is a slightly different company, that we want to do this in a fair trade manner and we want to be an ethical organization. And we really do care about the communities we want to work with. We are building long-term partnerships. So, that's how Honey Care Africa emerged as a name.
I suppose now Kenyans have a reason to be proud of their honey?
I think they are coming to a stage when they can appreciate the fact that they are producing world class honey in different flavours, mind you, depending on the flowers bees go to, you get different types of honey.
For example?
We have coffee honey, which we are just beginning to slowly start marketing. We are blending honey today. But eventually we'll have acacia honey, coffee honey, passion flower honey, wild comb and African Blossom. We might even be getting coconut honey very soon. All these are different flavours where you can actually taste the exotic fruits and flowers from which this honey is derived.
Does coffee honey have a coffee-ish flavour?
It does. We don't know what the caffeine content is, but it definitely tastes like coffee.
And what about your assessment of the World Summit of Sustainable Development here in Johannesburg. Has it been useful for you and positive?
It has been a wonderful experience and an eye-opener in many ways, because it has given us a chance to learn from the other people who are being funded by the Small Grants Programme of the UNDP, to learn more about other activities and other communities like those that are being funded by the GEF in Kenya and see what experiences they have had as well.
A final question, probably the most important, any chance of tasting some of your honey?
I would like you to try some of our Highland Blend honey. This comes from passion fruit and some of the gravilia and the croton that grows in the highland areas of Kenya. I'm going to give you some of the taste for the honey.
It's a glorious colour, it's a sort of gold. It's a dark gold honey. Mmm. Ooh, it's sweet, sweetish. But you can actually taste the flavour of the flowers in there as well.
Delicious, it's very fruity isn't it?
It is fruity honey and it's got a good aftertaste as well. It's almost like wine, you can almost tell the different types of honey in Kenya now. Like I said, we have 37 different flavours of honey now.
Lovely. Thank you very much.
I think we have one more satisfied customer now!
Certainly! Thank you.
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