Beekeeping makes my day, keeps me in leafy suburbs
Friday May 14 2021
Shaffy Hagenimana at his honey shop. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA
From a small village in Kibungo where he made his first income out of beekeeping to Kiyovu a high-end estate in Kigali Shaffy Hagenimana’s journey in business has been a wonder.
Mr Hagenimana started producing honey and has now diversified to more than 30 products.
He is the chief executive of KASO Organic Store, a firm with a great touch of art and creativity as you enter the gates.
His daily motivation is to impact people's lives to remain healthy. The company employs more than 1,000 people, and trains them to solve some of their healthy challenges using organic substances.
"The passion grew as I observed my mother make traditional medicine for me out of honey and other herbal recipes since I had breathing problems then, and now I even export honey," Mr Hagenimana said.
Honey became expensive in his home area, and his mother found it difficult to make his medicine. The honey she was buying was not of good quality and she could get it from far.
He found ways how he could help his mother get the honey easily and less costly.
“There was an old man in our village who practiced beekeeping, I made a deal with him, and he started teaching me how to make beehives and I could buy him a beer,” he added.
And when he summed up all the costs it took him to start his venture, it was Rwf7,000, which he was given as pocket money, and he bought one beehive at Rwf1,000.
“I started making beehives when I was in high school. I went back for studies and after six months when I came back home; the beehives had reproduced 10kg of honey. What surprised me, many people bought the honey at Rwf 500,” he revealed.
He remained with 2kg for home use and used the profit to buy more beehives. “After my high school, I learned that if many people from my village need honey at a high rate, wouldn't it be the same case for other people in other areas?
''I started attending different entrepreneurship exhibitions like the DOT Rwanda competition where I got an award of Rwf 700,000, and I reached the national level competition where I won a TV set which I sold and bought more beehives,” said Mr Hagenimana.
His venture was soon bringing good returns. ''I could harvest 6kg per beehive in six months then g 15 kg per beehive in three months.”