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 green gold and in 2012, Botanic Treasures was born. Botanic Treasures is a family business that makes moringa powder, varieties of moringa tea and other health products including moringa 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 potential. In 2017, Elizabeth joined TBN’s Scale for Success programme. It taught her to develop the organisation’s processes and build the right team. Elizabeth says that, “since attending the Scale for Success, I have 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 priority.”
Over the past year they have entered 2 new supermarket chains and added 18 new stores. They now work with over 300 farmers. They are also working on increasing awareness of moringa’s health benefits as it’s still a fairly unknown product in the region. The moringa market is still fairly new in East Africa so there is room for Botanic 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 house from selling moringa to Botanic Treasures. This is the real motivator for Elizabeth. She says, “people’s lives are transformed, people can pay for school fees, they can buy a new water pump, now children can go to college because of moringa sales. The stories are endless. It’s a ripple effect, we talk of 300 farmers directly [impacted] but if we talk about the clients, it s in the thousands.”