Founded in 2018, B-Corp certified Kazi Yetu – meaning “Our Work” in Swahili – produces a range of ethically sourced and traceable teas that are processed, blended, and packaged locally in Tanzania for both domestic and international markets. Kazi Yetu is founded by Tahira Nizari, Hendrik Buermann, and Ashley Speyer who saw an opportunity to create jobs for women in an industry that was losing most of its potential revenue by foregoing domestic value addition before export.
Kazi Yetu trains smallholder farmers on organic and regenerative agriculture, sourcing green tea, orthodox tea, and herbs from 2,090 smallholder farmers and ensuring they receive a fair price for their high-quality produce. This not only guarantees farmers’ access to markets but also protects them from market volatility, improving their livelihoods and advancing Kazi Yetu’s mission of creating a more just and sustainable tea industry in Tanzania. The company demonstrates that businesses can thrive while delivering tangible social and environmental benefits.
Against the backdrop of economic losses from exporting raw materials and farmers not benefiting from value chains, Kazi Yetu’s focus on local value addition has set a benchmark in ethical sourcing and sustainability. By focusing on local value addition, Kazi Yetu enables smallholder farmers to participate more in the value chain, enhancing their revenues and redistributing the economic gain to them. In 2023, Kazi Yetu established the first smallholder-farmer-owned specialty tea factory in Tanzania (Sakare Specialty Tea Company (SSTC)) enabling the smallholder farmers’ participation in the tea value addition, increasing their income and impacting over 6,000+ livelihoods. The SIINC deepens Kazi Yetu’s impact, supporting the expansion of its training initiatives for farmers, enhancing their agricultural practices, ensuring higher quality yields, and offtaking the tea and herbs from the farmers resulting in greater women’s empowerment, improved quality yields and increased farmer income.
Tahira, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Kazi Yetu shared:
“Strengthening our supply chain has always been a challenge for Kazi Yetu as our demand grows, but with this SIINC we will be able to invest in our farmers with more confidence. We are grateful to Daraja Impact and look forward to working more innovatively with this unique model.”
Sawa Nakagawa, Executive Director AlphaMundi Foundation, shared:
We are thrilled to welcome Kazi Yetu to Daraja Impact’s portfolio. Kazi Yetu is redefining the tea industry in Tanzania by intentionally focusing on the economic empowerment of women smallholder farmers and sustainable/ethical sourcing. The use of an innovative financial instrument (SIINC) helps to align the funding to the company’s impact achievement, and to catalyze additional private capital.”
Media Contacts:
For more information on this release, contact: Claire Njoki | claire.njoki@alphamundi.ch
For more information on Daraja Impact, contact: Nora von Wintersdorff | noravonwintersdorff@alphamundi.ch
About Daraja Impact:
Daraja Impact is a 5-year project that seeks to support enterprises by providing capital and technical assistance to advance inclusion and empowerment for women and youth in Tanzania. The project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (“SDC”) through the Embassy of Switzerland in Tanzania and implemented by SEAF, a global impact organization, in partnership with AlphaMundi Foundation.
About Alpha Mundi Foundation:
AlphaMundi Foundation (AMF) is a US not-for-profit 501(C)(3), with a Kenyan branch based out of Nairobi. AMF provides blended finance products (technical assistance, returnable grants, concessional loans, first loss guarantees, etc.) to scale small and medium-sized businesses operating in Africa and Latin America. AMF supports these companies to incorporate gender- and climate-smart operations that create financial returns and positive social and environmental outcomes.
About SEAF:
SEAF is a global impact organization dedicated to improving lives and communities through entrepreneurship and small businesses. We invest in debt and equity capital and provide advisory and mentorship to support SMEs in underserved markets, creating jobs and building sustainable communities. Since 1989, SEAF has made more than 433 investments across 46 funds in over 31 countries globally.
