Bio Óleos de Maxixe

Bio Óleos de Maxixe produces a range of natural oils-based body and skin-care products such as lip balm, body butter, sunscreen, medicated and bath soaps. Bio Óleos de Maxixe packages these products in containers fabricated from local sustainably-harvested noble hardwoods, often using the off-cuts from high end products such as woodwind instrument blanks, creating a product as attractive as it is environmentally friendly.

Discriminating customers of boutique retail establishments in search of truly socially and environmentally sustainable products; customers of mid-range retail establishments in search of more natural products

Bio-Óleos de Maxixe will build a workshop and the company’s head office in Inhambane province in southern Mozambique. The workshop team will process oils from local suppliers into a range of body care products, and package the products in built-to-order containers from the Mezimbite Forest Center. The company will later expand its operations to include a carpentry shop of equal capacity to the Mezimbite Forest Center.

Through the AD Schwarz brand, Bio Óleos de Maxixe has established relationship with model and environmentalist Summer Rayne Oakes and her firm SRO, LLC. Ms. Oakes will be working internationally to promote the BOM brand.

The company will coordinate distribution logistics with Mezimbite Forest Center, which currently exports products to EU countries; and with Coconut Oil Mozambique, which currently exports large volumes of oil to South Africa.

Bio Óleos de Maxixe targets three segments of the body care market with two distinct product lines. To boutique establishments, BOM markets 100% natural, 100% locally-produced organic body care products of the highest quality. To the broader mid-range of healthcare stores, BOM markets a product line based on natural ingredients produced in Mozambique. Locally, BOM markets a line of natural soaps and balms as affordable alternatives to imports.

Suppliers to boutique retailers focus on a narrow range of products formulated from both local and imported oils and packaged in imported petroleum-derived plastics.

Middle-range retailers rely on conventional body care and cosmetics companies to produce high volumes of “natural” body care products with organic-certified essential oils added to petroleum-derived base oils.

Boutique body care products from BOM set the standard for quality eco-friendly goods. BOM’s products are made with the finest oils available, and stand apart as truly ecologically and socially sustainable.

Bio-Óleos de Maxixe will create community wealth through a resource base that has until now been forgotten. The company puts the resource base in the hands of community members. The company derives its primary products from local materials, and its packaging and printing from noble hardwood (second recovery) and natural cellulose-rich waste. With increased income, community members have greater access to education and health care.

Bio-Óleos de Maxixe will sponsor community entrepreneurs to assume management of established production components. Oilseed harvest expands to new communities where new locally-operated workshops extract oils; new community timber harvesters are trained in pre-processing woods and reforestation of expanded areas. As the BOM workshop continues to develop new products, mature products and processes are spun off to form community businesses.

Allan Schwarz and Ana Alecia Lyman form the entrepreneurial team behind Bio-Óleos de Maxixe and hold majority and minority shares, respectively.

Lyman is bringing the business to implementation. With a background in education policy and program management, she focuses on management, fundraising, communications and marketing; while Schwarz, an environmentalist and architect, provides technical expertise and strategic and operational planning.

With her combination of education, policy and communications skills, Lyman is creating Bio Óleos de Maxixe as a model business for building community capacity and empowering individuals.

Schwarz's experience includes teaching “Design with Nature” at MIT and designing a sustainability analysis tool for construction and manufacturing. Since 1996 he has been in Mozambique establishing the country's first community forestry programs.

During this startup phase in the business, Ana Alécia Lyman is covering her living expenses with short consultancies for the GTZ and a local cotton company.

Bio-Óleos de Maxixe incentivizes conservation of resource bases and proactively replants all plants, especially indigenous trees. Proven regenerative systems will be adapted to ensure no further loss of biodiversity and the reinstatement of lost diversity in parallel with sustainable food production. By partnering with BOM, partner communities benefit economically from the restoration of these forest resources.