Peel’s Sizana wins award

BUILDING BEEHIVES: IMPRESSIVE ACCOLADE FOR INNOVATIVE COMMUNITY IMPACT

Initiative helps bring community-produced, 100% pure, raw honey to the broader market.

The partnership between Peel’s and African Honey Bee (AHB) uplifts rural, poverty stricken communities by training people to build beehives and become beekeepers.

The AHB project won the award at this year’s Community Chest Impumelelo Social Innovations Awards for Social Innovation in Income Generation. This is an impressive accolade to AHB and Peel’s for their impact in rural communities, which drives the creation of new micro-beekeeping businesses.

Guy Stubbs, the founder of AHB, said: “We are so grateful for the recognition and for the honour of being part of the Community Chest Impumelelo community.”

A global shortage of honey that complies with raw and fair trade standards provides opportunities for trained and committed beekeepers.

Peel’s has partnered with AHB to bring community-produced, 100% pure, South African raw honey to the broader market.

Peel’s Sizana raw honey products embody cooperation on a micro and macro level – it encompasses community cooperation to create a sustainable business, protection of the environment, and broader national cooperation to support disadvantaged communities. This is reflected in the name: Sizana means “to cooperate” in Zulu.

With the help and guidance of AHB, beekeeping families form savings groups to start small businesses and cooperatively manage their micro-farming enterprises. Businesses are further assisted with training, technical support, low cost agri-inputs, and access to markets. The AHB ImpactApp helps to measure poverty, manage value chains and link consumers to the small-scale producers.

“At AHB we believe that innovative solutions for the betterment of mankind should be shared,” said Stubbs.

Peel’s provides AHB with bottles, labels and packaging services, as well as distribution and marketing. Our profit share agreement with beekeepers ensures financial viability and sustainability to enable the longterm growth of this initiative.

Thanks to QR codes on each jar, every jar of Sizana honey is traceable. This allows consumers to identify and read up on the beekeeper who farmed the bees and produced the honey by taking a picture of the jar’s tag with their cellphone. Information includes the area of the hives, the season and date that the honey was produced, and the dominant flora types that the bees were seen collecting nectar from.