Sat, 30 Sep 2017 11:48:10 +0000
By Mailesi Banda
COMMUNITY Markets for Conservation (COMACO) is working towards exporting honey and peanut butter to the United Kingdom and the United States of America, assistant sales and marketing manager Kennedy Mafinge has revealed.
Mr. Mafinge said the two products had attracted the market in these two countries adding that they had sent enquires to COMACO to supply that market.
He said they were working towards the certification of the products to suit international standards to get into the export market.
Mr. Mafinge revealed that they had the capacity to supply the market, adding that they would scale up once all the documents for exports were in place.
“COMACO is working towards penetrating the export market with our honey and peanut butter which has received international recognition and we are receiving enquires from the USA and UK market,” he said.
Mr. Mafinge also said COMACO had the capacity to meet the demand for peanut butter and honey for both local consumption and the international market.
He stated that plans were underway scale up production to meet the demand for the commodities, adding that logistics and the market had already been worked on.
Mr. Mafinge said COMACO produced 15 tonnes of honey and about 80 tonnes of peanut butter monthly for local consumption, adding that meeting the demand for the export market would not be a challenge.
He explained that the major challenge with honey was that production depended on the weather pattern which he however said could be rectified by the distribution of beehives in more areas than they currently had.
“The weather has an impact on the production of honey but this will not stop us from meeting the demand from the export market since we will distribute increase our distribution of beehives,” Mr. Mafinge said.
He also noted that Mwinilunga was the largest producer of honey, adding that more beehives would be set up in the area to increase production.
