Eswatini Kitchen is a Fair Trade producer of natural gourmet food from Swaziland. They make a wide range of 100% natural and traditionally made jams, marmalades, honey, sauces, chutneys and atchars, which bring you all the taste of Africa with a social ingredient.
Eswatini Kitchen was established in 1991 in Swaziland with the objective of creating employment for disadvantaged women, and to provide a market for small local farmers and rural families who harvested wild fruit (especially guava and marula). The project started with five women that worked in a one room kitchen and covered every part of the production process.
Within two years the project was breaking even and reaching its goal of employing disadvantaged women. Oxfam Australia, and then Oxfam England discovered Eswatini, and before long international orders were coming in. Fair Trade Original in Holland were particularly impressed by what the small project had achieved thus far and became good customers and a valuable and supportive development partner. They recognized that training was critical to develop the project’s international business capacity, and provided support in business management and capacity building. All the staff working at the factory was given tutoring in basic literacy, with those in key positions receiving computer training.
Nowadays, Eswatini Kitchen is a fair trade producer of natural gourmet food, certified by the World Fair Trade Organization and the Cooperation for Fair Trade in Africa. It exports its products to 15 international destinations including Europe, USA, Australia and Japan, complying with food safety standards and international regulations. Eswatini Kitchen has grown from a small cottage industry to a thriving business that is enhancing the lives of underprivileged communities by providing a fair and sustainable income for over 300 people in Swaziland, and devoting all its proceeds to the Manzini Youth Care initiatives, which support more than 2000 marginalized children and young people in the country.
Today:
- Eswatini Kitchen’s staff is composed of 50 employees
- 90% of them are women
- 45% of them are single mothers
- 96% are the sole income providers of their homes
- Eswatini Kitchen cares for the employees and their 150 children
We stock a lot of Eswatini Kitchen’s delicious chutneys, pickles and jams in the shop and on Click & Collect. Come in and check them out!