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NATIVE FOODS- MOSUKUJANE ICE TEA; OUR FRESHLY BREWED PREMIUM ICE TEA

NATIVE FOODS- GABORONE

Ice tea was invented in America by an English tea merchant many years ago, and many people have since been partaking in the refreshing tea forcing different manufacturers to come with more different versions of ice tea.

It has been a world wide product, which continue to enjoy enough demand in the market even Botswana bought it and enjoyed it. But before 2017 Botswana had not seen, bought not tasted any locally produced ice tea.

Things took a different twist in 2017; a very positive one, when the now 37 year old Moagisi ‘Zulu' Gokatweng of Native Foods applied his mind and decided that he will defy the odds and bring to the shelves a locally produced ice tea.

‘Zulu’ as he is fondly called proved that he is no ordinary man, he went for a traditional herb that many would remember from their great great parents ancient years ago and decided to use it for the ice tea;  ‘Mosukujane’ dates back to the years of our great great parents, the small herb was harvested from the forest ( it usually grows in the wilderness where there are more rocks ) and put in tea. The herb gave the tea an aroma to kill for and the extra ordinary mint tea that many would enjoy. Zulu reckoned it was the best product for the first ever Botswana ice tea.

However this Mahalapye native had in 2016 when he started business, produced ‘Kgodu ya Lerotse' which he then together with his wife packaged and sold ( he surely has a story to tell about indegineous food, how his passion for this foods came about). But the highlight of Native Foods company has been ‘Mosukujane Ice Tea'

Researchers have  found out  that Mosukujane (Lippia Javanica) was four times richer in anti-oxidants than what was currently in the market. Mosukujane is also caffeine free. It has also been documented that Mosukujane is anti bacterial, anti diabetic.

Zulu explains that he has known Mosukujane since his younger days when he stayed at the lands and the herb was then popular used with tea and has since fell in love with the herb and when this business idea cropped up in his mind, he ddnt hesitate or beat around the bush on what could be his product, Mosukujane has always been the best product.

“ke simolotse go kopana le Mosukujane ko masimo, kana ke mosimane yoo godileng setswana ko Mahalapye, ke disitse ko masimong a Maphaphane. Mme rene entse ere gare disitse, re gatelela re nwa Mosukujane re o kopanya le tee e twaelesegileng. And I really enjoyed Mosukujane.”

Zulu explains that it was not a walk in the park coming up with this Mosukujane ice tea, as it called for a lot of research from their part; around 2016 and 2017, they were mostly working more in the laboratories testing the product to confirm certain standards which are required before the product can reach the market.

After all the research and testing was done, and Zulu was sure that he has a good product, marketable and in demand but just needed the financial muscle to take off and take it to Botswana, he set down and put together a business proposal to the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) to assist.

He says the process of getting funding from CEDA is not an easy one, as one has to go through a lot of processes and do more paperwork but despite the hectic process, he could not be deterred as he had a product he was sure about and would stop at nothing to take it out in the market. Eventually CEDA assisted him with over four hundred thousand pula’s to kick start the production of Mosukujane ice tea and he did exactly that.

He purchased machinery and other raw materials that had nothing to do with machinery, “ we were operating from home but CEDA helped us to move here (Gaborone West industrial) where our business is operating from now. The funding also helped in terms of paying establishment costs from the beginning.”

When they started Zulu explains that they produced a 100 litres a day but now they have a capacity of 5000 litres a day, thanks to the machinery!

Like any other businesses, Native Foods have challenges and amongst this challenges is limited capacity in terms of other raw materials that have to do nothing with machinery. He says they could being doing more than the 5000 litres they are currently producing if they had more cash  to address most of their cash flow issues.

“The demand in the market is very positive, Batswana are really buying Mosukujane ice tea, we currently don’t have a problem of the product staying on shelves with no buyers. People are buying it,” explained Zulu.

Mosukujane ice tea is currently found in ;

▪Choppies

▪Square Mart

▪Saverite (selected)

▪Caltex filing Station (few)

▪Re-sellers

Native Foods has staff complement of 8 people which are youth and one of the highlights of Mosukujane Ice Tea as according to Zulu is the fact that in producing their product, they go out and but Mosukujane from women in rural areas, who have now come to appreciate the value of Mosukujane and ate now rooting for it to be preserved at all costs. He says this to him is empowering the community especially women who for the longest time has been know that they are the worst hit when it comes to poverty. “When communities start to benefit from their resources, they start to take care of them as there is an economic value they are deriving from them.

Zulu is smart enough to admit that there is a hungry market out there which is ready and able to consume their product but they are currently struggling to avail it all the time because of cash flow issues. However they are working around the clock as a company to ensure that they keep up with the demands of the market and very soon they will be in a good state to even export Mosukujane ice tea to other markets outside the boarders of Botswana.

According to Zulu, the future of Mosukujane Ice Tea looks very good in terms of where they are going; 5 years from now, Native Foods are seeing commercial farming of Mosukujane where they will not only be brewing it as a tea  but will also be selling it as tea bags.