Mutenga Bamboo a start-up based at Nzvimbo Village, Chiweshe Mazowe in Mashonaland Central of Zimbabwe becomes the first manufacturer of bamboo toothpicks in Zimbabwe. 
This achievement came as a result of the hard work and visionary leadership of founder and CEO Rowen Meda and his young and energetic team. 

![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/M9DoIMI5LDpqdYSEbXsodIsHti7xvkIyZQYKijTN.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/eApAwdSpB1DO9bxUYgyvY4r6GGVkWlR1yJJ9A24q.jpg)

The team is implementing the Rowen authored 
Mutenga Renewable and Sustainable Bamboo Circular Economy Concept #MRSBCEConcept and is upbeat about their exploits. 

Mutenga Bamboo imported a state of the art equipment for its toothpicks manufacturing business. 

![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/V5VH7EqKitNXYSncZOZFRmSWqSufikZ6LICTzUjP.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/QCT507VaRyCv3yRUXR6RWcGsT6pWD93o2oDBu1Rp.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/xpAVWJeK2SsUNPxQoeDiQX02Z9U4qBQ3jCLTQ3bO.jpg)
This equipment will allow the use and value addition of bamboo. This means employment creation and extra disposal income for the community in rural  industrialization. Mutenga buys the previously ignored bamboo from communities at a lucrative price. Now communities are finding a reason to farm bamboo as it brings around $1000 per acre per year for mature fresh bamboo culms.

Mutenga Bamboo organogram represents both experienced in form of board members and the youthful energetic leadership in all departments.

This plant machinery has the capacity to manufacture toothpicks that can enable Zimbabwe to save the much needed foreign currency through imports. https://www.newzimbabwe.com/zimbabwe-gobbles-us105m-on-toothpicks-chewing-gums-imports/.

Currently Mutenga is manufacturing from a temporary factory in Harare awaiting electricity installation at its base in Chiweshe. Mutenga is constructing a factory on a 3 acre stand and also establishing a 100 hectares bamboo plantation at the village.

![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/bVA3pVj8ugJcye7KBQ9WDnjpPYIpeNN3DbIGnTC6.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/TOS1qomMfRY0X2oIkTmlQxebdxqQqU90UKiKbXfF.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/LUJO7VMPIV5panmVjj8eSAoFh1FLyre4ddIJcsWR.jpg)

Mutenga becomes the 1st manufacturer of bamboo toothpicks in the history of Zimbabwe.  

Mutenga Bamboo ended the year 2022 on a high note after becoming the 1st Zimbabwean company to produce bamboo toothpicks.  This opened another long awaited window of participating in the Land Accelerator Africa 2023 top 100 cohort. https://www.wri.org/initiatives/land-accelerator/africa

![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/5ltlEYVG3CMYDtQMPk8OgqIdn7JmaH0HwdKnKUVq.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/c93W4CSYGgnRCBkusdjTtGU3XTBFaAw658L0ESfo.jpg)

This Accelerator program rightly fits in the goal of Mutenga Bamboo of protecting the environment whilst growing the economy. Bamboo as a nature based solution to mitigation of Climate Change helps in absorbing the pressure exerted on the natural forestry especially due to the need of cooking energy and building timber. 

LA Africa a brainchild of World Resource Institute is  also supported by AFR100, Fledge, Barka Fund, AUDA-NEPAD, and Sverige with an aim to train and mentor businesses that restore degraded forests, farmland and pasture. The target is to restore 100 million hectares of land by 2030.

Zimbabwe alone pledged to restore 2 million hectares by 2030 and Mutenga as a rural entity that plays a pivotal role in land restoration is geared to support this initiative.

![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/1Ycw0MQ97hjEmtTiErsvLuIdUE5NNgyHHTh0JRM7.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/MLaunSWnpK7N9z0VdEsnnQ3WQAD3k0ICVpelx6Q0.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/eHytoVsZpw7ds5kZ9otHe2JJBoJD7mVEvliBbuEn.jpg)
![](https://dash.mutengabamboo.co.zw/storage/P4NKii5LVHUTSLGa5NiMwUsjyz4sLIJV7mjeXbwP.jpg)


Land Accelerator Africa Participation 2023

According to Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency [(EMA)](https://www.ema.co.zw/agency/downloads/file/Deforestation%2C%20a%20cause%20for%20concern.pdf), the major contributors to deforestation are:

1. Tobacco curing
2. Energy provisions
3. Land clearing for various land uses including agriculture.

Tobacco remains one of Zimbabwe’s major foreign currency earners, along with gold and nickel. The levels of deforestation mean that a serious forest preservation and reforestation initiative has become critical. Zimbabwe loses about 330,000 hectares of forests annually.  Forest and woodland resources now cover 45% of the country’s land area, [down from 53% in 2014.](https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2019/06/zimbabwe-faces-deforestation-dilemma/)

Rowen Meda, who was born and bred in rural Zimbabwe, recently came face to face with the devastating effects of deforestation. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, during the first hard lockdowns, Rowen spent most of his time in his rural village. It was during this time that he noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult for his mom and her neighbors to find firewood for cooking due to the massive deforestation in the area over the past couple of decades.

Rowen, who has always been environmentally conscious and had been looking to be more active in environmental activism, decided to look for more sustainable alternatives to help his mom and the community. That is when he started exploring several solutions using locally available resources. He then started to experiment with bamboo. He is now looking to scale up the production of several bamboo-based products.


![](http://127.0.0.1:8000/storage/lZ3hfQTHgV3PE9NHyXfVoFKcuXEcS2mgXXsCY9Di.jpg)


Based in Nzvimbo Village, Mazowe, Zimbabwe, Rowen Meda’s Mutenga Bamboo uses bamboo, which matures much faster than indigenous trees, to make charcoal for cooking, heating, and tobacco curing. As part of its commitment to promote the circular economy, Mutenga Bamboo incorporate waste cardboard boxes as well as waste sawdust in its production process. Bamboo can be harvested for use in about 3-6 years. Producing charcoal from bamboo forests has been said to take [pressure off fragile forest resources](https://www.inbar.int/achieving-sdg-7-the-potential-of-bamboo-charcoal/) used for fuel, heating, and firewood.

Zimbabwe has been facing acute foreign currency shortages for most of the past 2 decades. This has resulted in periodic petrol and diesel shortages. There has been a drive to try and increase the production of goods locally under import substitution initiatives to save foreign currency and to also increase exports to earn more foreign currency. There has been an uproar over some of the goods Zimbabwe is spending some of its scarce foreign currency on.

In 2020, [a report said that Zimbabwe spends $105m on toothpicks](https://www.newzimbabwe.com/zimbabwe-gobbles-us105m-on-toothpicks-chewing-gums-imports/), chewing gum, and diaper imports. Toothpicks are mostly imported from China. There were a lot of jokes and memes on how the country can’t even make toothpicks. Mutenga Bamboo is now scaling up its locally made bamboo toothpicks to fill this gap and help reduce the import bill. Bamboo has natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.

Mutenga Bamboo was recently announced as one of the winners of the second batch of [Circular Valley’s](https://circular-valley.org/winners_batch2) circular economy accelerator. Rowen and his colleague are currently in Germany until February of next year as part of the program. Mutenga Bamboo has also just introduced a new range of pens that use bamboo barrels instead of the usual plastic barrels. I hope they get to scale up their project quickly.



Mutenga Bamboo Introduces A New Range Of Bamboo products In Zimbabwe

The turning point.
The turning point in the journey to implement the Rowen Meda authored Mutenga Renewable and Sustainable Bamboo Circular Economy Concept #MRSBCEConcept was in the successfull participation of Mutenga team in the Circular Valley Accelerator program in Wuppertal Germany https://circular-valley.org/. This event was an opening to the Mutenga team as they got the chance to rub shoulders in networking, trained and nurtured by the best in circular economy. Circular Valley in Europe is what Silicon Valley is to America and as such Mutenga team comprising of the CEO and Founder Rowen Meda and co-founder Farai Musendo is exuberating with confidence in building a multi million dollar company that protects the environment whilst growing the economy. It took the excellent discovery of the Circular Valley team led by Dr Carsten Gerhardt to take in Mutenga Bamboo "the Hidden WiN in ZiM" into their wings. 

At Circular  Valley  Mutenga had the ability to network with other like minded and sharp brains in Circular economy. 

![](http://127.0.0.1:8000/storage/M8jI6ORgHMxO851HvK5kCundhlWLcjIX0v7zUjtz.jpg)
![](http://127.0.0.1:8000/storage/C46zexVQLOqwixdpxgBGsOHcgXEOiGCGr2NO1jge.jpg)
![](http://127.0.0.1:8000/storage/eE6Mp1rr7Ik0fPILkwgjDGLIxoGEkY7qsM1irJQi.jpg)


The hospitality of the people of Wuppertal made the team feel at home in a freezing winter season. Despite being one of the hardest times in human history because  of Covid the Mutenga team enjoyed their stay each and everyday as they visited great sites in Wuppertal. 

![](http://127.0.0.1:8000/storage/56Uhj2vBa4EAt6YOynQxPFdcROWQLM3VQGY5tUsO.jpg)


1. [Mutenga Bamboo at the Circular Valley Demo Day](youtube.com/watch?v=HWiEsleK1_8) 
2. [Circular Valley Demo Day#2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AYAy8hdDnM) 

The [demoday presentation](https://youtu.be/HWiEsleK1_8) on March 11 2023 by Rowen Meda opened many doors to future export opportunities and partnerships in Europe.

Stories

Mutenga becomes the 1st manufacturer of bamboo toothpicks in...

Land Accelerator Africa Participation 2023

Mutenga Bamboo Introduces A New Range Of Bamboo products In ...

Mutenga Bamboo participates in Circular Valley