Financial support from ABioSA helped emerging Zimbabwean business Afrikan Ornamentals attain organic certification, register trademarks and expand its product range.

The business manufactures and supplies natural plant ingredients, mainly indigenous vegetable oils for the cosmetics, personal care and cosmeceutical sectors. It works with African species including Baobab (Adansonia digitata), Marula (Sclerocarya birrea), Mafura (Trichilia emética), Sour Plum (Ximenia americana & X. Afra), Kalahari Melon (Citrullus lanatus) and Mongongo (Schinziophyton rautanenii).

Ingredients are wild harvested and sourced from third parties. The company employs five people and five seasonal workers. Current sales volumes are around 6,200kg of natural oils and butters with a factory capacity utilisation of 52%. Oils account for more than 90% of revenue.

In 2025 export sales accounted for most revenue with main markets in Germany, Denmark, Namibia, Spain, South Africa and the US. With ABioSA support the Afrikan Ornamentals product range grew from three to six, and it expanded its factory space to meet certification audit standards and growing business needs. It developed a comprehensive operating procedure manual based on the ABioSA Good Manufacturing Practices guides.

Organic certification for oils was attained in July 2024 under the Ecocert Organic Standard and USDA National Organic Certification programmes. The business is now exploring organic certification as a wild collector in addition to its current organic processor certification.

ABioSA helped to prepare the business to attend the Vivaness (cosmetics) 2024 and Biofach (organic food) 2025 trade fairs in Germany.

Future plans include expanding oil production capacity and diversifying the product range into stock feed and Baobab powder.

Fungai first discovered the ABioSA Knowledge Products (KPs) on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) while doing research in 2023 ahead of the ABioSA Local Subsidy grant application. ABioSA GMP KPs helped him to document and update the company’s existing manufacturing processes and systems.

Adoption of GMP particularly helped compliance with organic regulations, improved hygiene, reduced machinery downtime, enhanced employee safety, improved product quality and boosted productivity.

'The organic certification process required us to adopt GMP, so we referred to the ABioSA KPs for guidance. The ABioSA GMP Guidance was well aligned with our business stage and relevant to the needs of the natural ingredient sector,'Fungai says.