As several studies have shown around the world, predominantly female-owned companies are more likely to have a higher business growth-rate, create a positive company culture, more likely to reduce impact of climate change and environmental degradation and engage in innovation activities, than the majority male-owned SMEs (UNIDO,2022).

Although owning and managing a business remains a male-dominated territory in the country, women-led initiatives continue to stand the test of time as UNDP and other partners like KFW and Royal Norwegian Embassy continue to support their empowerment and growth.

The Peanut Butter lady in Blantyre District Rural

Born and raised in the rural areas of Blantyre, Ms. Cecilia Rice started her journey in processing Peanut Butter in a small, rented room with just two part-time employees.

Ten years later, Cecilia is the proud owner of one of the biggest locally owned manufactories of Peanut Butter sold in all the major supermarkets in the country, called Estrelle Trading Company.

Estrelle is one of the success stories supported by UNDP, under the Malawi Innovation Challenge Fund. They are developing a nutritional peanut butter product to target low income, rural customers in the country.

Using a smallholder-led supply chain, Estrell processes groundnuts into peanut butter which is then packed and retailed in reduced volume sachets at more affordable prices. 

Estelle Trading Company now boasts of over 50 employees, of which 52 percent are women.

Cecilia shares her story of perseverance and the passion in supporting the women from the area she grew up in, to improve their economic livelihoods.

“I witnessed how young girls would drop out of school after seeing those who finished their secondary school education struggling to find employment within the area. By employing women and young people from here, it serves as a positive example to young girls to stay in school,” said Cecilia.

The Company’s supply chain also focuses on empowering small holder women farmers who grow groundnuts. Over 2,500 groundnut smallholder famers supply groundnuts to Estrell, and have had their incomes improved, of which 60% are women farmers, and 2% are people living with a disability.

The company has also provided training and demonstrations on best practices to the small holder farmers to help build their skills and capacity in groundnut production, post-harvest management to reduce risk of aflatoxins, and improved storage practices.

Tinyade Bisa is one of the employees who has been working with the company for the past 10 years and now manages the packing section of the factory.

She said: “Unlike my previous company, Estrelle Company provides better incentives for us like executive medical aid, pension allocation and house allowance. With the money I make here I can stand on my own to help my two children and other family members. I have also learnt how to process groundnuts and different business ideas. My ambition is to follow the footsteps of Ms. Rice to become a business owner and supply agricultural products to different factories”

Tinyade would also like to see women in her area being economically empowered and changing their lives for the better.

“Being financially dependent on men all the time is one of the reasons why women go through abuse in their marriages. My advice to my fellow women is to find something to do. If you cannot find employment, you can start a small business and if you work hard enough, that business will grow,” said Tinyade.

The story of the Kombeza brand and nutritional Dairy products

 ‘Kombeza Yogurt is a household brand in Malawi, with a catchy name derived from Chichewa, which means ‘scaping off something delicious’; an indication to the flavor of the Kombeza Yogurt that its customers can testify to.

Kombeza Foods is one of the companies supported through the Growth Accelerator Entrepreneurship Challenge of UNDP.  

The Growth Accelerator Fund is a business acceleration instrument that provides financial and technical assistance to young, ambitious, and impactful start-up companies, to provide sustainable business solutions to development challenges.

Five years after the financial and mentorship support under the Fund, the founder and owner of Kombeza, Dingiswayo Tewete has shown her grit and hardworking spirit as a business-owner to continue to flourish, through a myriad of challenges in the country.

The Covid pandemic, Tropical Storm Ana, forex shortages crisis, national devaluation, diesel scarcity, electricity crisis; and countless other challenges – all created a perfect storm that most would consider raising the white flag and retreating from the world of entrepreneurship.

However, Kombeza Foods still stands with its mission to grow beyond its current popularity, a strong sign to a woman’s capability when given a chance and invested in.

 With her deep roots to the farmers that supply Kombeza with the fresh milk, the owner of the Company is going far and beyond to use private extension workers and facilitators to educate and train dairy farmers to help improve their economic livelihoods.

“It is quite simple. If the farmers do not have the required resources to produce the best milk, even if we have state of the art equipment, our final products will still not be the best of quality. As such we have fully dedicated our time and resources to ensure that the farmers, we work with are trained and equipped in how to observe hygiene, how to keep their cows healthy, keep utilities that store milk in perfect conditions and diversify to other ways of creating income beyond the dairy production, which is usually not enough to sustain them.

As a company, we trained our farmers on how to make their own soap to ensure more hygiene practices in their dairy farming. We are also looking at how to support them to produce Biogas from the animal waste. From the high value products that we plan on diversifying to, we will also be able to offer our farmers better prices that will further improve their economic levels”, said Dingiswayo.

Through the Growth Accelerator Matching Grant, the company has constructed a factory with a capacity to produce over 5000 liters per day. They have also received technical assistance that has helped re-orient their business approach, provided jobs to over 11 permanent employees and increased their production levels from 800 liters per day to over 3000 liters per day.

“Despite everything we have had to face and how much it has affected our wellbeing as a company, we still choose to look at them as learning opportunities that have helped us to put systems in place to mitigate similar challenges in the future. We have also provided a learning platform for other entrepreneurs, to have practical examples and be more aware when coming into this business world”, said Dingiswayo.

With new equipment procured and on its way to the company, the Kombeza brand is highly ambitious for their next milestone and targets to produce more high value products including butter, fresh cream, cheese and drinking milk for kids.

The 2030 Agenda cannot be realized without the participation of women, ang failing to invest in women as key contributors to the economic growth, not only affect their growth, but the growth of Malawi as whole.

“We are calling for more partners to invest in brands like Kombeza and Estrelle, that have clearly shown how they go above and beyond in their business approaches to ensure that their success also trickles down to other people, without leaving anyone behind. These are the transformational stories that we need in Malawi. UNDP and KFW took the first step to invest in what other partners considered risky areas and we have shown that it is worth every kwacha and more,” said UNDP Malawi Resident Representative, Mr. Shigeki Komatsubara.