ZimTrade honours Bulawayo green solutions entrepreneur

A BULAWAYO entrepreneur, Mr Welcome Bhila, of Bee’s Honey Company has scooped two awards in recognition of his innovativeness and provision of environmentally friendly business solutions.

The young company is involved in the whole bee value chain and also offers training and consultancy services to bee keepers.

The 34-year-old entrepreneur participated in the recent ZimTrade youth exporter awards and his company was honoured for its hard work and unique business model under the green solution and social impact category.

The awards ceremony was conducted in Harare and also covered innovation and export potential categories.
The information communication technology and business management graduate, started his bee keeping enterprise in February 2016 following his exposure to apiculture. He paid tribute to his team for making it possible to win the prestigious award.

“Thanks to ZimTrade for recognition and also to my team. Their participation and good work have brought the awards home,” said Mr Bhila.

“Bee’s Honey Company produces all products associated with bee keeping, which include honey, bees wax and propolis.

“We also offer bee keeping training to individuals and groups as well as consultancy services and pollination services. We also supply all bee keeping equipment and honey processing equipment.”

Mr Bhila said his boldness in business has been enhanced by capacity building and training programmes under ZimTrade and partnerships with organisations such as Comesa and the African Union on beekeeping.

“I am a trainer of trainers and I am trying to train people as much as I can,” he said.
Mr Bhila is also the national secretary of the Zimbabwe Apiculture Platform. He said there was a need for Zimbabwe to scale up farming production to become one of Africa’s largest producers of honey.

“As a company, we are trying to fill the gap in terms of demand for honey in the industry and during this Covid-19 pandemic, demand has gone up as honey has some health benefits.

“We work with small-scale farmers by training them and supplying them with equipment and also buying their honey,” said Mr Bhila.

Bee’s Honey company is one of the companies that are exporting its products to countries like South Africa and promotes the growth of Zimbabwe’s products. – The Chronicle