You’ll remember the Malawi Cane furniture I started a few years back.

malawicane.com now exports handmade furniture from Malawi to over 20 countries across the globe, with exclusive agents in Australia, Netherlands, UK, France, Spain and the United States. The arrangement with the exclusive agents is that I won’t sell to anyone else in their region, as long as they buy a minimum of 10 containers from me every year.

So that’s all going very nicely, and it’s a good fit with Cafe du Cap and Cabine du Cap. In fact, if you visit Cafe du Cap, you’ll see we use the Malawi Cane chairs in the restaurant, and they also feature on the deck at Cabine du Cap. Both premises feature literature on the origin of the chairs, as well as where you can buy them.

I always wanted to be in the import / export game, but found it all a bit daunting, as I had no training in that field. As I said before, it was a relief to find partners like Berry & Donaldson, who make it very easy for someone who knows nothing about import and export, to get involved.

The less I can be involved in logistics, the better. They handle all of my dealings with airlines, shipping companies, and customs-related processes, as well as warehousing, insurance and cargo deliveries.

Red tape sorted, and the result of this is you get the confidence to try out new things.

Enter Malawi Moringa.

So I ran into someone on Kloof Street a couple of years ago. We recognised each other and I said hi. I couldn’t place where I knew him from, but I knew he was safe enough to shoot the breeze with. He asked how ‘the chairs’ were going and I said very well, so he said I should look into a product called moringa – from the moringa tree, which is only grown in a couple of regions of the world, including Malawi.

I took note and, as detailed in my book, I followed the usual steps I take when a new idea starts germinating  – checking out Google Trends to see how popular the search term was etc. It turns out there was interest, but nothing too significant.

The product itself was definitely interesting. The Moringa tree is also known as ‘The Miracle Tree’, because it’s jam-packed full of nutrients. More vitamin C than an orange, more iron than spinach, and so on.

It also has a great marketable backstory, insofar as it’s been used for centuries in impoverished communities without access to a full range of healthy nutrients. Whilst ‘pap’ – a popular traditional African dish – is very filling, it does lack the necessary nutrients to survive and grow.

These communities would add moringa to their pap, and reap the health benefits. As I said, great backstory.

I parked the idea and about a year later, I spotted some moringa in a local health shop. I checked online again and noticed a surge in online searches for it, so I found a moringa supplier in Malawi and ordered 50 kilograms of the stuff.

I followed the usual steps from my book and set up moringacompany.com.

Berry & Donaldson got the 50kg from Malawi to me, and I spent a couple of days packaging the powder (from dried moringa leaves) into fancy metallic pouches, with a smart label on the front and a nutritional breakdown on the back.

Before I could even start selling the product online, I ran into a guy from Brazil. We got talking, and he told me about his connections in the Brazil retail game – in particular, the health sector. Fast-forward a couple of months and my first 100kg of moringa powder (400 X 250g bags, packaged in my garage) arrived in Sao Paolo. I’m currently waiting for the second order to Brazil, which is for one ton of moringa powder.

The garage is too big to package 4 000 bags, so luckily Schuyler from Ideas Cartel has some flexible workspace for me. I reckon it will take 12 days for five people to package these bags with labels and seal with my fancy heat sealer, and then stamp with my new ‘best before’ stamp!

Then it’s over to Berry & Donaldson to do the honours, and get this stuff off my hands and around the world without any hassle.

I’ll keep you posted. If these shipments continue, you might see a Malawi Moringa sorting office opening on Loop Street!

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