Founded in 2015 in Burera District, Sanit Wing is a local small business that produces soaps and detergents from avocado.
Their products range from Avocado oil, Skincare products like Sanatavo skincare and many more.
Sanit wing is also developing the entire avocado value chain to great heights to solve some challenges facing communities.
James vainqueur Bimenyimana, the Marketing Manager at Sanit said the company supplies to different districts where products can be found in different shops amidst financial constraints to expand products range.
“We are still struggling because we do not have adequate equipment to achieve our goals,” he noted.
Alexis Nshimiyimana, the Founder and Managing Director of Sanit Wing has said that he started this company with Rwf65,000 capital, which he had saved from his previous job.
Nshimiyimana has disclosed that they have a high demand for avocado oil on the international market but cannot meet production capacity.
“We have had orders of Avocado oil beyond our capacity. We have clients in Nigeria, Namibia, Egypt, and the USA who are ready to buy 20,000 liters of avocado oil every month. But the challenge is that we shall be able to produce meet that capacity in 2023,” he said
Nshimiyimana explained that there are more products with high demand like cosmetics.
To tackle this challenge, the company seeks to engage impact investors, mostly the ones from the agriculture sector and others committed to reduce poverty.
The company plans to invest in modern equipment in 2023 to meet global demand and leverage on advantages of the African Continental Free Trade Area to create multiprocessing branches in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Cameroon.
“We are planning to uplift the avocado value chain in Rwanda and create a stable market for the avocados involving smart contacts (Blockchain technologies) to make avocado farming smarter. We also plan to create over 6000 decent jobs across the value chain by 2025,” said Nshimiyimana.
He further stated that their goal is to tackle the problem of relying on imports.
“We wish to contribute to Rwanda’s economy but before that, we need help from the Government, the private sector, impact investors and Rwandans at large,” he said.
In a bid to help small businesses to thrive, the Government of Rwanda has put in place different initiatives to help young entrepreneurs and women along their journey.
For example, Business Development Fund (BDF) works with beneficiaries from different sectors like agriculture and others by offering grant to women and young entrepreneurs who have applied for loans from financial institutions not exceeding Rwf10 million.
BDF provides up to 15% while the beneficiary repays the loan up to 85%.
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