Inclusive job creation is central for us at Kazi Yetu. I feel motivated by our social and environmental impact on each of our women factory workers, farmers and processors. It’s exciting to see our products, traceable from farm to cup, on shelves in Tanzania, Europe and North America, so consumers can enjoy ethically sourced tea and learn about the production.”
Tahira Nizari, Co-Founder and Director, Kazi Yetu
Location: Tanzania
Founding year: 2018
Number of employees: 15
Website: Kazi Yetu | Organic & Fair
Revenue: USD 300,000 (2023)
Investment ask: USD 1 million–5 million of seed capital (debt and equity)
Investment needed to:
- Strengthen its supply chain
- Conduct research and development on zero-waste products
- Upgrade factories
- Increase sales volumes
- Create more job opportunities.
Commodities and services:
- Tea production and processing
- Training of farmers
- Tea and organic sector development.
Enterprise portrait
Tahira Nizari and Hendrik Buermann wanted to break away from the traditional value chain model of African commodities being predominantly processed, packaged and branded abroad. This model that concentrates most of the value addition outside origin countries holds back economic gains in Africa and perpetuates inequalities in global trade. The Kazi Yetu founders wanted to tackle this issue while creating high-quality job opportunities for women and improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. It was then in 2018 that Tahira and Hendrik decided to start Kazi Yetu with the aim of keeping value addition in Tanzania by manufacturing beverage products that are 100% made in East Africa.
Kazi Yetu is a B-Corp certified business that believes in social impact and the redistribution of economic gains to Africa by manufacturing finished goods in Tanzania. Kazi Yetu’s business model creates social impact in three ways: 1) high-quality jobs for women in its tea factory; 2) linkages to profitable markets and increased earnings for smallholders; and 3) changing the way goods are produced and traded from Africa. The company focuses on increasing profits along the whole value chain.
At the consumer end, Kazi Yetu strives to create transparency about its beverage products. The social enterprise believes that consumers have the right to trace products back to their source and know how their purchases impact society and the environment. To do this, Kazi Yetu has set up a traceability system. Each tube of tea is marked with a batch number so consumers can learn about their tea’s journey from farm to cup, including information about the ingredients, the estate or farm they originate from, the production process and the working conditions in factories. In addition to its traceability system, Kazi Yetu shares information via its communications channels about the social and environmental conditions in which its farmers work.
By increasing incomes for smallholders, creating high-quality jobs for women, keeping value addition in Tanzania and providing a farm-to-cup traceability system, Kazi Yetu is playing its part in changing the global trade system. This is what they call “beyond Fair Trade”.
Key commercial activities
- Sourcing: Kazi Yetu sources its ingredients from over 18 farm-suppliers, ranging from enterprises and cooperatives to smallholder farmers. Kazi Yetu’s suppliers follow organic principles and collectively engage over 2,000 farmers. In partnership with a women’s cooperative, Kazi Yetu recently opened a specialty tea factory in the Usambara Mountains in northern Tanzania. The farmer-owned factory supplies Kazi Yetu with dried teas.
- Manufacturing: The company manufactures tea and herbal blends at its all-women factory in Dar es Salaam, which employs 13 factory workers, one sales manager and one operations manager. Its process of blending is also based on organic principles.
- Branding and packaging: Kazi Yetu built a brand for its first premium line of beverages, the Tanzania Tea Collection, which is packaged in colourful and visually attractive tubes. The brand’s aesthetic reflects the company’s values that are summed up on each tube with the words “Fair – Natural – Swahili”. Kazi Yetu emphasises sustainable materials in its packaging, making its tea bags from biodegradable corn starch and its retail tubes of cardboard that can easily be reused or upcycled.
- Marketing, sales, and export: Kazi Yetu runs its own marketing and sells directly to 110 shops, hotels, cafés and restaurants in Tanzania and Kenya alone. It also exports its products and sells in bulk through its distribution centre in Lübeck, Germany to retailers, distributors and wholesalers all across Europe. Its products can currently be found in over 90 shops in Germany and in many more across Europe, North America, the UAE and Australia.
- Tea and organic sector development: Kazi Yetu has worked hand in hand with the Tea Smallholders Development Agency (TSDA) and the Tea Board of Tanzania, both of which fully endorse Kazi Yetu’s vision and model of local value addition and direct access for smallholders to specialty tea markets. After a successful collaboration in Usambara Mountains, Kazi Yetu and farming communities will receive support to open seven more tea processing factories in the country.
Kazi Yetu has also taken an active role in uplifting other SMEs in the Tanzanian organic sector. As part of the ongoing Organic Value Chain Development project, the social enterprise mentored 15 SMEs on business plan and product development, marketing and packaging. In 2024 it will start a follow-up project in which Kazi Yetu will incubate a second cohort of 30 SMEs to build their skills on marketing and packaging.
Plans to grow the business
Kazi Yetu plans to acquire organic certification for its factory in Dar es Salaam in 2024. It also expects to gain organic certification for two of its tea blends. The company plans to gradually do the same for all its beverage products. Kazi Yetu is additionally working towards achieving ISO certification. This step will further enhance its commitment to quality, safety and efficiency. It will not only boost the company’s credibility but also open up new opportunities for international trade. The ISO certification will act as a testament to Kazi Yetu’s dedication to maintaining high standards in its operations.
The enterprise is currently seeking to raise funds that will be used in several important areas:
- Improving its supply chain through training farmers in agro-ecological practices and providing small-scale equipment to increase productivity and improve post-harvest management
- Conducting research and development of zero-waste products to launch under the Kazi Yetu brand
- Upgrading the factory to create better working conditions for its predominantly female workforce
- Amplifying sales and marketing efforts in its target markets to raise volumes and create more job opportunities.
Agroecology impact highlights
- Kazi Yetu links organic producers without organic certification to premium markets in the EU and elsewhere, resulting in premium prices for Tanzanian smallholders. By focusing on local value creation, it ensures local growth and increased community wealth.
- It is accredited by Weltladen-Dachverband, the umbrella organisation for fair trade world shops in Germany. This ensures that world shops and their suppliers ensure better trade conditions and the safeguarding of social rights for producers and workers in the Global South.
- Its traceability system fosters transparency and creates awareness with consumers about fair and sustainable value chains.
- It maintains high standards for the treatment of workers and suppliers (such as through providing insurance for women and children, paying the Living Wage, offering English classes, and providing lunch).
- Its special focus on supporting women addresses stark gender inequities in food systems.
Current challenges
- Supporting smallholder suppliers to obtain organic certification is costly.
- Kazi Yetu has received just one loan from an accelerator, Anza, for USD 10,000.
- Kazi Yatu has struggled to find investors, as they typically target companies with annual revenue of at least USD 1 million. As a start-up agribusiness targeting export markets, it takes time to grow to that scale.
Financing track record
In its early years, Kazi Yetu was primarily self-funded. It raised additional funds through a crowd-funding campaign. In partnership with CARE International and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Kazi Yetu is currently implementing a project that provides technical and financial assistance for developing supply chains. Called ‘Her Money, Her Life’, it supports women farmers in tea, herbs and spices. Most recently, Kazi Yetu launched a fundraiser to mobilise investments in the form of either debt or equity.