Mama Buci
Get deliciously sweet organic honey from Mama Buci, the social enterprise honeymakers who are creating ripples of change in Zambia.
These award-winning wildflower bush honeys are pure, cold filtered and free from additives or preservatives. The two distinct types – Summer Harvest and Winter Harvest – reflect the seasonally changing flowers of the Miombo forest, where the bees collect pollen.
As well as tasting amazing whether spread on toast, drizzled over yoghurt or by the spoonful, every pot of Mama Buci has an incredible impact.
The brand was founded to create sustainable employment in an impoverished region of Central Zambia. The honey is hand-harvested by a growing community of over 7,000 families in the virgin Miombo forests, where Mama Buci has provided more than 70,000 bee hives.
Their support for the local communities goes beyond creating jobs. Back in 2006 they opened the Luyando school in Kamafwesa, which made a huge difference to the prospects for local families. Spurred on by its success, they plan to build more schools as they grow too.
The Mama Buci team also founded Give Hope International. This charity helps kids in Zambia, Malawi and Ethiopia stay in education by providing food for their families, so parents don’t need their help at home. Mama Buci also runs a scheme in Ethiopia for children with HIV to obtain the same support.
After a banana plantation project didn’t go to plan, Martin Zuch partnered up with friend John Enright to see if commercial beekeeping could be a sustainable way of providing livelihoods for Zambian locals.
A few years of fine-tuning designs for hives eventually led to a tree top bar beehive that was super effective, making harvesting easier and kinder on the environment.
Now they build over 150 of these beehives a day, have changed the lives of thousands of people and have gained awards and celeb ambassadors (Charlie Mackesy and Bear Grylls, in case you were wondering) along the way.
Founded By
Martin Zuch
