12 °c
London
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
No Result
View All Result
FurtherAfrica
  • Countries
    • Angola
    • Botswana
    • Cape Verde
    • DRC
    • Eswatini
    • Ethiopia
    • Kenya
    • Malawi
    • Mauritius
    • Mozambique
    • Namibia
    • Nigeria
    • Rwanda
    • South Africa
    • Tanzania
    • Uganda
    • Zambia
    • Zimbabwe
  • Interviews
  • Understanding
  • Videos
  • Travel
  • Weekend
  • About
FurtherAfrica
  • Countries
    • Angola
    • Botswana
    • Cape Verde
    • DRC
    • Eswatini
    • Ethiopia
    • Kenya
    • Malawi
    • Mauritius
    • Mozambique
    • Namibia
    • Nigeria
    • Rwanda
    • South Africa
    • Tanzania
    • Uganda
    • Zambia
    • Zimbabwe
  • Interviews
  • Understanding
  • Videos
  • Travel
  • Weekend
  • About
No Result
View All Result
FurtherAfrica
No Result
View All Result
Home Africa

Zanzibar beauty products from seaweeds: a community-based approach

Lorenza Marzo by Lorenza Marzo
September 23, 2019
in Africa, Empowerment, Industry and Commerce, Tanzania, Women
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0 0
0
Zanzibar beauty products from seaweeds: a community-based approach

Seaweed is an amazing story to tell, because it speaks about women, empowerment, respect for the environment and about an ethical way of doing business with the community and for the community.

Initially founded by a Swedish Foundation, Seaweed is currently run by a multicultural couple, with African rootsand produces natural and organic beauty products from the transformation of algae.

The sale of naturally growing seaweeds in Zanzibar begun during the thirties of the last century, but it’s only between the eighties and the nineties that a proper farming for trade started. Its main market is in Asia, with China, Vietnam, Malesia, Korea and Japan as main Countries of destination. Usually seaweeds are sold as raw material and then transformed into semi-finished or finished products directly by the importer and thus used in the cosmetics and food production. However, as in many other sectors, selling raw materials with no adding value is not so profitable for the local farmers, who can rely on a very low contractual power, compared to the huge foreigner importers.

So, Seaweed Co.Ltd has definitively added value to the zanzibarian local communities, by nurturing the hard work of more than twenty people (permanently part of the organization) plus a variable number of other collaborators according to the seasonality.

Intrigued and fascinated by this initiative, I have tried to analyze some of the winning strategies implemented by Seaweed Co. Ltd

  • Its peculiar organizational structure: setting itself as a social enterprise, Seaweed has the peculiarity of managing internally all the phases of the business: from farming to finished product. This means they cultivate the raw material, transform it and then produce and sell the finished products, mainly soaps, oils, scrubs, body lotions and many others. Because of its “social core”, Seaweed promote and contribute to build a number of social and environmental initiatives.
  • The excellent quality of its products, one hundred per cent natural, organic and entirely produced with locally available materials, which includes the algae of course, but also bee wax, sugar and many zanzibarian spices, just to list few.
  • A high quality packaging, which has the undeniable capacity to present the products at their best.
  • Its market positioning as a “social enterprise”, aiming at attracting a clearly identified market niche.
  • A marketing strategy coherent and in harmony with its market positioning: Seaweed Co. Ltd., for example, also offers learning tours, to understand the farming and the production cycle of the seaweeds, to learn how the products are made and to meet the producers. And this is surely a winning strategy to properly communicate with customers who wants to buy and consume ethically-made products.

If you are lucky enough to pass by Zanzibar, I warmly suggest you not to miss this spot.

Lorenza Marzo is a Tanzania based freelance consultant, Founder Wana-WAKE-UP! You can follow her on Facebook and Instagram

Related

Tags: African womenalgaecommunitycosmeticsethicalFeatureLorenza MarzoNGOorganic beauty productsPaje Seaweed Centre SocietySeaweed Centre LtdSeaweed ClusterSeaweed Cluster Initiative of ZanzibarSeaweed Co. LtdSwedish UniversityTanzaniaWomen empowermentZanzibarтанзанияتنزانياタンザニア坦桑尼亚
Lorenza Marzo

Lorenza Marzo

I am a genuine, real southern Italian lady. After six years as internal auditor, I left the world of corporate to search for my life purpose. In 2010 I arrived in Tanzania for the first time: it was supposed to be a sabbatical year, but I decided to remain to invest my skills side by side with social enterprises, local artisans and women entrepreneurs. I am a happy and busy mother of two and founder of WanaWAKE-UP!, through which I support social enterprises and artisans businesses to expand their presence into the global markets. I am a huge supporter of women's sisterhood and I strongly believe in the great potentiality of women for the Tanzanian (and not only!) economic growth.

Related Posts

Agriculture

The Gambia and AfDB to boost rice output and uplift youth and women entrepreneurs

by Farmers Review Africa
October 4, 2023
Mining

Tanzania’s race to ink multimillion dollar mining deals

by The Exchange
October 4, 2023
Agriculture

Dimitra applying blockchain to redefine agriculture in Africa

by Web3Africa
October 4, 2023
Energy

TotalEnergies given greenlight to drill offshore South Africa

by Energy Capital & Power
October 4, 2023
Development

AfDB and Google team up to speed up Africa’s digital transformation

by The Exchange
October 4, 2023
Mozambique eVisa
 
MozParks

Translate this page

Read the Latest

Agriculture

The Gambia and AfDB to boost rice output and uplift youth and women entrepreneurs

by Farmers Review Africa
October 4, 2023
0

Gambian President Adama Barrow and African Development Bank Group head Dr Akinwumi Adesina pledged last week to work together to...

Read more

Tanzania’s race to ink multimillion dollar mining deals

October 4, 2023

Dimitra applying blockchain to redefine agriculture in Africa

October 4, 2023

TotalEnergies given greenlight to drill offshore South Africa

October 4, 2023

AfDB and Google team up to speed up Africa’s digital transformation

October 4, 2023

FurtherAfrica Partners Network

The Exchange Farmers Review Africa 360 Mozambique
TechGist Africa Energy Capital & Power Club of Mozambique
Taarifa Rwanda Web3Africa See Africa Today
Africa Global Funds Novafrica CrudeMix Africa
Harambee Africa Botswana unplugged Financial Insights Zambia
O Económico Digilogic Africa  

Subscribe to FurtherAfrica

Enter your email address to receive new articles on your email.

Join 107.3K other subscribers
FurtherAfrica

© 2021 FurtherMarkets

FurtherAfrica is a FurtherMarkets Limited platform

  • Countries
  • Interviews
  • Understanding
  • Videos
  • Travel
  • Weekend
  • About

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Countries
    • Angola
    • Botswana
    • Cape Verde
    • DRC
    • Eswatini
    • Ethiopia
    • Kenya
    • Malawi
    • Mauritius
    • Mozambique
    • Namibia
    • Nigeria
    • Rwanda
    • South Africa
    • Tanzania
    • Uganda
    • Zambia
    • Zimbabwe
  • Interviews
  • Understanding
  • Videos
  • Travel
  • Weekend
  • About

© 2021 FurtherMarkets

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
 

Loading Comments...