The Sunday News
Njabulo Bhebe, Business Reporter
ONE of Bulawayo’s fastest growing indigenous skin care products manufacturer, Divine Providence Skin Care has set its sights on exploring regional markets as it seeks to further its business growth.
Divine Providence Skin Care founder and managing director Ms Providence Moyo said the company was making concerted efforts to start exports into the region leveraging on its membership in Southern African Essential Oil Producers Association (SAEOPA).
“The local market has been overwhelming and this has made us realise the need to introduce our products to the regional market.
“We are in the process of improving our packaging and branding so that we export value-added products. We are targeting countries such as South Africa, Botswana and Zambia, which are part of SAEOPA,” she said.
SAEOPA is a non-profit making organisation for the advancement of agricultural projects with a bias towards Small to Medium Enterprises and rural areas, in particular the promotion of essential oil and vegetable oil production to promote and uphold the status of this profession in all sectors of the population and to perform such functions as may be desirable for the attainment of these objectives.
As part of its growth strategy the company has opened another Day Spa in Harare and increased its product lines from two to 10 since it was established six years ago. A Day Spa is a business that provides a variety of services for the purpose of improving health, beauty and relaxation through personal care treatments such as hair, massages and facials.
Divine Providence Skin Care produces skin products such as bathing soap, lotions and oils for the human skin made from indigenous trees such Mangongo, Manketti, Baobab and Moringa.
It, however, imports one of its raw materials, shea butter from Ghana. Shea butter is a fat extracted from the nut of the African shea tree.
It is ivory in colour when raw, with more processed versions being white in colour, although it is commonly dyed yellow with borututu root or palm oil. It is widely used in cosmetics as a moisturiser, salve or lotion.
“We have managed to open another Day Spa in Harare and increased our production line to about 1 000 quantities with our most selling product being the herbal bathing soap. Our monthly turnover is currently at $50 000 which we derive from the Day Spas and beauty clinics, which makes our business a lucrative one.
“When we started in 2014, we had only two products and to date we have 10 that we are producing. Our products are unique in the sense that the raw materials used to come up with them are naturally obtained and these are trees such as Mangongo, Manketti, Baobab and Moringa which are indigenously found in various places in the country,” said Ms Moyo.
The company recently launched its distribution network in which it sells its products to individual distributors at subsidised prices.
Ms Moyo also conducts workshops mostly in the Matabeleland region aimed at empowering women to run their enterprises successfully.
“As part of promoting and empowering other women to start their own businesses I also conduct a number of workshops aimed at training on how to successfully run their enterprises using my own experience as an example. I have realised that a number of women have the zeal to run their own businesses but don’t have the nitty gritties to go about it. We are also supporting and empowering women in communal areas from where we obtain our raw materials most of which harvest the natural resources for us,” said Ms Moyo.
The entrepreneur is one of the women aged between 18 and 35 who have received personalised business mentorship, as well as professional knowledge, tools and networks, in order to turn their ideas into successful business enterprises under the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE), a White House to support women entrepreneurs globally.
Last year she was one of the guest speakers at a Women Entrepreneurs conference billed “Strengthening Business And Trade For Women in Africa.” The event was held in Ghana.
