We foresee potential storage issues arising from our annual Rooibos yields if we don’t sell or export them. Our Rooibos quality is exceptionally high, consistent with many premium products exported from South Africa. Now, we have the opportunity to benefit our local community by sharing our Rooibos with them, requiring just a bit of effort on our part.

Moreover, this initiative will not only provide us with some physical exercise but also generate much-needed household income. After all, there’s nothing more rewarding than customer satisfaction!

We faced quite a challenge in deciding our next steps. While getting Rooibos into teabags or packages isn’t difficult, the process can be quite straightforward. We simply load 20kg bags of Rooibos onto the “bakkie” (pickup truck) and deliver them to the packaging company. One bag yields about 8,000 single-serving tea bags.

Depending on the company’s order volume, we may need to wait anywhere from a day to ten days before picking up the teabags. We can then pack them for the market ourselves, or if we prefer, the company can handle that for an additional cost.

As a tiny business in a market dominated by large, established companies with decades of experience, we fully understand the challenges we face.

However, we are confident that we can offer our clients a high-quality product at a reasonable price while minimizing waste.

This is achievable because the main factors influencing any product’s price are:

1. Packaging
2. Transportation
3. The middleman (This refers to those who buy in bulk, repackage, and ultimately pass the costs onto consumers.)

Living here is truly more than just a place to stay.

While we initially chose this farm for health reasons, we are now incredibly grateful for the lessons it has taught us about appreciation.

On the farm, we’ve become acutely aware of waste in ways we never considered while living in the city. In urban life, you simply push your rubbish outside once a week, and someone else handles it. We never truly thought about what happens to that waste.

We remember being annoyed by street collectors gathering various waste items for a little extra cash. Now, I sometimes find myself wishing one of them would come by and rummage through our waste!

To address our own waste, we’ve had to rethink how we purchase many products, opting for glass containers and reusing bottles as one of our ways to contribute to waste reduction.

With this in mind, we’ve made it a priority to promote our Natural Rooibos Leaves in bulk, as it’s our primary offering.

However, we soon realized that the market isn’t quite ready to embrace the switch to healthy, loose-leaf options.

That said, we’ve noticed an increase in inquiries about health products since the COVID pandemic, signaling a shift in consumer awareness.