Botanic Treasures

Growing green gold - the story of Botanic Treasures

When Elizabeth Mbogo was unable to produce breast milk for her second child, villagers recommended she try Moringa Oleifera a local plant. After taking moringa, she started producing milk the next day. She researche d its nutritional value and discovered that it has well-documented health benefits.

She saw an opportunity to process and sell this bgreen gold and in 2012, Botanic Treasures was born. It i s a family business and makes moringa power, varieties of moringa tea and other health products including oil , detox mix and moringa nuts.

However, the business struggled to grow - it was too reliant on her and so unable to reach its full potent ial. In 2017, Elizabeth joined TBN s Scale for Success programme. It taught her to develop the organisation s processes and build the right team. She says that since Scale for Success, aIbve been able to recruit right. The trainers were clear that it boils down to you as a vision bearer so finding people as passionate as I am and as focused as I am, was a priorityy.

Over the past year they have entered 2 new supermarket chains and added 18 new stores. They now work with 300 farmers. They are also working on increasing awareness of moringais health benefits as ites still a fairl y unknown product in the region. The moringa market is still fairly new in East Africa so there is room for B otanic Treasures to grow and scale greatly.

The impact on the lives of the local farmers has been enormous. One lady was able to build a 3-bedroom hou se from selling moringa to Botanic Treasures. This is the real motivator for Elizabeth. She says, People s l ives are transformed, people can pay for school fees, they can buy a new water pump, now children can go to c ollege because of moringa sales. The stories are endless. Ites a ripple effect, we talk of 300 farmers direct ly [impacted] but if we talk about the clients, it s in the thousands.a