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THE COVID-19 pandemic gave a free rein to an unmatched wave of disruption, sweeping across the globe and leaving no facet of human activity untouched. Communities found themselves searching for ways to combat the invisible enemy known as Covid-19. As the world turned to various home remedies and natural treatments, one particular solution began to gain traction, honey. For one Aulyn Makoni, this collective speculation ignited an evolutionary expedition shifting from the leisurely quest of crafting traditional beehives to wholeheartedly taking up honey production as a blooming entrepreneurial endeavor, Nekta Honey.
In an interview with The Entrepreneurial Magazine, Makoni recounted how, until 2020, her aspirations had never included the path she eventually embarked on. As an outstanding student throughout high school, she firmly believed that achieving good grades and obtaining a university degree would guarantee her success in the job market.
Her dream and passion was to excel as a marketer for international brands, steadily climbing the corporate ladder until her retirement.
“However, nothing prepared me for COVID 19. By 2020 when restrictions began to tighten, I had been hardly surviving on hairdressing to pay for my fees and rentals while at Chinhoyi University and I was in my second year at that time.
“From March 2022 until May 2022, I was in the village doing gardens and teaching extra lessons for prospective candidates, but I was not satisfied. I was making extraordinarily little and could not be enough for anything.
“I was investing so much time making traditional beehives to kill time and that is when people began to speculate different home remedies for treating Covid and amongst them, honey was constantly mentioned. And that is how the idea of producing honey as a business struck me. I had to leave the village to go and pursue the project at school,” Makoni said.
Nekta Honey Bee offers a range of services such as farming guidance, consultancy, and training, along with apiary project setups. They specialize in bee removal, transportation, and the production of organic honey and honeybee by-products like wax, propolis, and attractants. They also serve as a market for local honey producers. Additionally, Nekta Honey Bee supplies beekeeping equipment such as beehives, bee suits, smokers, and tools. Recently, they have expanded their product lines to include spices, sweeteners (without sugar), and organic meats from their farm, including chevon, rabbits, roadrunner, and broilers. Looking ahead, their plans include launching skincare products for individuals with albinism, establishing organic shops, and expanding their beehive count to a thousand nationwide within the next two years.
Despite facing challenging boundaries such as gender stereotyping market relevance and most of all financial ability, as a social entrepreneur, she committed to reinvesting every penny into her business, which demands substantial time and effort to grow and advance. Her African dream is to run the apiary in one place and produce for a much larger market as well as employment creation.
Speaking on some of the challenges she faced she said: “There are complications and requirements of securing a plot while I am still pursuing and funding my studies. The question of collateral always arises. So, we have made the best out of our customers and our growers. It has been a long road trying to keep people around without salaries or allowances. I am eternally grateful to my counterparts for staying through the journey up until we could finance the business and employees food baskets. And now we are looking forward to more talent joining our team as we expand into South Africa and Zambia.
“Selling an organic product is quite a sport in a market that is flooded with adulterated honey. Initially we introduced training where we would teach people to assess honey before tasting it.
“Then we had to be creative and introduce food testing programs and promotions to encourage clientèle to embrace organic products.
“…Lately we have had to make use of our clients’ apiaries to set up our own beehives next to theirs.”
Identifying untapped opportunities is at the heart of remaining relevant; hence, Makoni combines originality with diversification. This approach allows Makoni to explore new avenues while staying true to its innovative roots.
Additionally she said, “Nekta honey and Organics is not a one-man band. We value teamwork and we empower our workforce with practical projects which they run in partnership with the company. For example, everyone is first and foremost a beekeeper be it the scientist, tailor, driver or salesperson. Secondly everyone runs a similar project in partnership with the company.
“When we do bee removals, we use nontoxic and organic consumables to extract the bees and we carry them so that you are assured they will never be a nuisance. Our major concern is to carry them alive and give them a new home in a hive or set them free in protected forests. We run a paperless promotion every two months whereby our packaging comes without labels and all prices are discounted. This is both a contribution to the environment and an initiative to promote retailers.”
Her vision is hinged on striving to create a world where a commitment to ethical beekeeping and organic products ensures the flourishing of ecosystems, the availability of pure, organic honey, and the promotion of overall well-being.
Achieving a healthy work-life balance is a growing concern in modern society as individuals strive to manage the demands of their professional careers while maintaining personal well-being and fulfilling familial responsibilities.
Speaking on this Makoni said: “I am a family person, and my family is my greatest support. Over ambition does have an unquestionable hold on my planning and scheduling but I have found that incorporating family can make work manageable when your family understands daily pressures. Also making sure to pay Black tax every now and then.”
Key takeaways on Gender equality and equity: I believe that where equity or a sense of fairness is established then equality would have been achieved. My other two sense then is that we need to look at where these conversations are emanating from, who introduced the concepts in the first place and why. I come from Makoni District down there where the “Vazvare or Manyati” dominated the traditional courts and rights over land. Land, a great responsibility was always the burden of the women. But now it was the white men who brought ideologies that crippled the black mindset into thinking and believing that one must voluntarily or customarily submit and be powerless and it had to be a woman. For many decades, the mantra was incorporated into our traditional culture. Now it is the same white man, through donor fund colonization, coming back to unpack women empowerment after so many years. My catch here is that equality used to exist and is very possible, but it is going to take time and years to rewrite lost years if misinformation. We need access to equal opportunities to develop our economies.
Key takeaways on Women’s Day 2024 campaign theme: It means making sure that women are part of the agenda in agriculture, economics and policy making. It also means that at Nekta Honey we go an extra mile in empowering and employing more women. It means setting up partnerships that are gender sensitive and transformational and capacitating.
MILESTONES
Bachelors degree in International Marketing.
Currently pursuing a Masters in International Environmental Studies.
In 2021-2022, conducted training for bee farmers and established apiaries in all 26 Wards and marginalized communities of Hurungwe, in partnership with FAO, AWF, and UNDP.
Beekeeper tour scheduled from August to December 2022, open to all interested individuals.
Attendee of the inaugural Climate Justice Academy organized by Action Aid Denmark in partnership with the MS Training Center for Development Cooperation in Arusha, Tanzania in December 2022.
Owns a minimum of 250 beehives across Zimbabwe.
Founder of the Aulyn Makoni Foundation for environmental justice, which sponsors school fees for underperforming students in the rural area and provides training for young mothers in market gardening and honey production.
Partnered with the El Makasi foundation to empower women in the Nketa District through life skills training and supporting small business startups.
