Eggshells-neglected tool in fighting cognitive development

Divine Recycling Industry is a Tanzanian-based social enterprise that produces dietary supplements from chicken eggshell bio-waste through a eco-friendly process. We are commercially-minded but with divine aims, striving to alleviate the global burden of malnutrition which is currently affecting 1 in 4 children globally and render childrens to irreversible damage of cognitive development according to a United Nations report. We aim to do so through the provision of vital nutrients sourced from eggshell bio-waste processed into an affordable dietary supplement. Alongside our mission to combat malnutrition with our core product, we maintain a strong focus on sustainability and support for the economies in which we operate.

We are trying to reduce the problem of malnutrition. Undernourishment affects 1 in 9, or 815 million, people globally and is responsible for the death of over 3 million children under 5 every year. When malnutrition doesn’t result in death, its impacts are still severe and often irreversible – stunted growth affects 1 in 4, or 159 million, children. This can increase the risk of disease and reduce cognitive ability, hurting the individual’s future education and employment potential, but as a result also impact communities and economies. Women and girls are the most vulnerable, so Divine Recycling Industries particularly targets these segments of society.

Divine recyclers industry target all local parental mothers, children around Tanzania as primary customers for the company, Tanzania accounted to 43%. Our company focus to serve 10% of parents by 2023. 

Our products beneficiaries includes young children, Adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, older people, Immuno-compromised people, indigenous people, people in poverty and groups migrating or displaced due to conflict, drought. 

The effort of cutting down malnutrition has failed because most people can't afford nutritious food because of economic factors good example is Tanzanians, Demographic and Health Survey 2018 report shows that 12 millions Tanzania live in extreme poverty on earning less than $0.60 per day, so they endup relying on energy rich foods while we have a comparative advantage of recycling eggshells to produce cost effective food supplement to be added to there normal diets to supply the missing nutrients and that's the core part of our business. A range of spices are added as a natural food preservative and an additional source of vitamins and minerals. Key to the success of solution is awareness and access – I compliment my product with nutritional guidance, both through social media and meeting with my target consumers in person, and ensure I offer affordable pricing to customers, while remaining a commercially viable business. Any solution must be sustainable, to reduce adding to other social and environmental problems in solving one; Divine Recycling Industries prides itself on creating value from a waste product, sourcing all ingredients locally, producing locally and using recyclable packaging. Divine Recycling Industries also aims to create further social benefit through hiring locally, creating positive ripple effects in the local community and economy.

Chicken eggshells which first serve to protect and provide nutrients to the enclosed embryo, which are normally considered as trash, are now collected and processed under very hygienic condition to bio-calcium food supplement, for human nutrition to prevent micronutrients deficiency which leads to malnutrition. A range of spices are added as a natural food preservative and an additional source of vitamins and minerals Nutritive value of eggshells has a higher calcium level compared to other calcium sources, also it's highly soluble in the stomach acid and has a value added addition of other minerals such as phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, sulphur and iron and benefit of small amount of protein which is absent in other food supplement sources. It's natural and there is no chemical additives used for preservation unlike other synthetic food supplements. We add spices to supply additional vitamins and minerals.

In addition We are so proud of our EGGSHELLS FOOD SUPPLEMENT not only for what it contains but also for what it does not contain.: -No GMO -No gluten -No artificial flavours -No artificial colours - No hydrogenated oil -No gelatin -No yeast.

We use High Temperature Short Time food processing technology characterized by rapid heating and cooling, holding for a short time at relatively high temperature and filling aseptically into our sterile packages; on processing eggshells into food supplement. A range of spices are added as a natural preservatives. This is to ensure quality and shelf life of our products.

Our business model is very unique. We work with local youths who assists us in collection of eggshells waste from restaurants and hatcheries, we assure them with sustainable income per year.

We compliment our products with nutritional guidance both through social media and community gatherings for free. We are expecting to start going in rural areas to give nutrition awareness -aim is to reach those with access to Internet and the ones without Internet access.

Tanzania is the third worst affected country by malnutrition of all countries in Africa. The micronutrients deficiency  alone cost Tanzania Tshs 700 billion per year, with tragic and far-reaching social costs. No-large scale nutrition initiatives have been launched in Tanzania for a decade. In 2011 Tanzania spends $764,584 import of dicalcium phosphate. This is alot of money that could have save by producing our own calcium. But also the data shows that the global calcium carbonate demand was 113.7 million tons in 2016 and is expected to reach 180.1 million tons by 2025 at an estimated CAGR of 5.3% from 2017 to 2025.  In addition We believe it takes a healthy parents to raise a healthy kids with that in mind We target adolescent girls nutrition awareness and our products as well because early child bearing also contribute to malnutrition in Tanzania, by age 19 57% of adolescent girls had began childbearing in 2015-2016, which is an increase from 44%in 2010. The risk of stunting of 33% higher among first born children of girls under 18 years in Sub-Saharan Africa and as such as motherhood is a key driver of malnutrition.

The company will take full advantage of the demands trends to ensure profitability, viability and sustainability of the business.

so far we have 131 customers we expecting this number to increase to 6000 in one year and 5 million people in 5 years. 

• To open new food supplement process at Mwanza region by 2021.
• winning more pharmacy around big cities and Rural dispensaries. 
• increasing production sites around Tanzania to cope with high demand 
• introduce other products like Divine spirilluna, Divine Eggpowder, Divine multi-vitamins and Divine multisupplement. 
• Expand to Asia and Europe.
• Provides food supplement to 5 million people in rural Tanzania 
• Employ 150 local youths by 2024

competition: the market is open to larger bio-based companies to enter what is a relatively untapped market.

Dependency on eggshells:
eggshell bio-waste is the main ingredient in our calcium supplement, so a key supply-chain risk .

Risk of foodborne pathogen:
a risk if eggshells are not prepared in-line with the required process.

 Dependency on funding: we require start-up funding to get the business off the ground, if these are not met it could slow initial business growth

about competition: We plan to leverage our local market expertise, personal approach with customers and truly unique product to build brand loyalty, as well as pursue patents (following TFDA registration) to prevent the mimicking of our product by competitors; as a small organisation with products and processes designed around creating social and environmental good, larger organisations may find it more challenging to reach similar standards and/or adapt when required.

About dependency on eggshells: We plan to avoid this by having multiple, independent sources of eggshells; we also plan to have some product stock-piled to resolve any short-term supply gaps.

About food borne pathogen: We have documented the production requirements to avoid health risks, approved by our Technical Advisor, thoroughly train staff and employed a Quality Control officer to ensure required standards are met..

About dependency on funding: I have applied for grants and investor funding and been successful in obtaining  $9000 of the initial start-up funds required, which I am putting to use to progress the business while seeking funding for the remaining portion.

we have 4 permanent employees and 17 registered local youths.

The Divine Recyclers Industry team is formed of highly competent and energetic professionals from across the fields of Health, Finance, IT, Marketing and Business Management, all based in Tanzania, who share a similar core passion and drive.

Diana Orembe; A holder of BSc in Microbiology, founder and the current Managing Director  Divine  Recyclers Industry, Diana is responsible for the overall industry management and co-ordination of the activities within the industry

Dr. Danford Katenda, co-founder, the medical doctor who works as the qualit control,  he works towards defects prevention and identification so as to measure and assure the quality of products and ensure products and services meets consumers expectations.

Miss Rebecca Nyambweta;  holder of Bachelors of degree in  agriculture economics and agribusiness, the current Accountant at Divine recyclers industry, she is responsible for monitoring the progress of projects, approving expensesexpenses and ensuring that projects billings are issued to customers and payment collected.

Sarah Mwaipopo, holding Bsc in Industrial engineering and management, production manager at Divine Recyclers Industry, she make sure that products conform to standard and workers maintain quality standard procedures.

17 registered local youths who assists in eggshells collection from different restaurants and hatcheries.  Plus two permanent women who works in the production room. We are expecting to double this number by 2020.

I won a place in Yunus & Youth’s Youth Fellowship Program 2019, through which I am receiving online training and mentorship for six months, focussed around building a sustainable business model and creating scalable impact.

I continually strive to extend my network, meeting with likeminded individuals and organisations, across Tanzania and globally, to explain Divine Recycling Industries’ initiative and seek advice and support; for example, most recently I met with Tanzania Urbanization Laboratory Program under Economic and Social Research Foubdation; Tujenge Tz Innovation Challenge under Unleashed Africa; She founder Africa under Sahara Ventures;  Tanzania Digital Innovation Youth Empowerment program under Danish Royal Embassy.

Our business model is very unique we work with local youths to assist in collection of eggshells bio-waste all around the city and we ensure them with sustainable income per year.

We then sterilize eggshells bio-waste and process the shells into food supplement which is in a powder form.We Aims to improve the nutrition situation of the Tanzanian community especially  children and women, who are our primary customers, Tanzania accounted to 43%.Our products beneficiaries includes young children, Adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating mothers, older people, Immuno-compromised people, indigenous people, people in poverty and groups migrating or displaced due to conflict , drought. .

We target low income clients as market model;  to remain financially viable we will sell our food supplement at cheaper price without compromising the quality of our products.

So far we have received funds to help take the business off the ground, our business will be able to sustain it self on the market since projected annual business capital investment required in terms of initial budget outlay  is Tanzania Tzs 49,354,500, it's projected that the Investment will generate a Net profit of Tzs 39,277,422 in year one and thenot increase to Tzshillings 62,941,500 in the year five. The financial and technical analysis shows that it is viable to undertake this business.

The prize will help us to scale our food supplement production by buying larger  and more efficient machines. This will allow us to meet large orders we receive from distributors and retailers, that today we cannot. Once we are in a position to scale production, we intend to establish additional contracts with distributors in surrounding regions, creating more employments for youth along the value chain.  As we scale up production we also intend to grow the educational outreach aspect of our work. We will use these prize funds to help develop more comprehensive educational materials for our potential client base and to extend our reach to a broader audience through social media engagement and publication. It would be invaluable to talk with and receive feedback from leaders in Sustainable Development about our Business and to have access to a mentor to influence and support the execution of my Business plan over the next 4 months.

To reach our goals Divine Recyclers seeks partnership:

• To mentor and support the execution of our business plan over the next four months
• To work with, to provide nutrition education through multichannel platforms both on and offline.
• To help us with fund raising strategies so as we can be able to take the business next stage.

I would like to partner with organizations which deals with food and nutrition and Nutrition education for example 1000 days of life, Unilever; Nestlé; Super kids nutrition and many more; Aims is to build connections and see how we can work together to fight children under-nutrition.

As we scale up production we also intend to grow the educational outreach aspect of our work especially to secondary schools in rural areas. We target adolescent girls nutrition awareness and our products as well because early child bearing also contribute to malnutrition in Tanzania, by age 19 57% of adolescent girls had began childbearing in 2015-2016, which is an increase from 44%in 2010. The risk of stunting of 33% higher among first born children of girls under 18 years in Sub-Saharan Africaand as such as motherhood is a key driver of malnutrition. We will use these prize funds to help develop more comprehensive educational materials for girl children's and to extend our reach to a broader audience through social media engagement and publication.