DLG NATURALS BW (PTY) LTD
Plot 4313
Gabane
Botswana
Phone: +267.74118639
Located in Gabane, Botswana, DLG Naturals BW (Pty) (Ltd) is a producer of fairly traded, high quality, cold-pressed marula oil for the international cosmetic industry. Our sister company in the United States, DLG Naturals, Inc., sources natural, indigenous, and sustainable oils from a vast network of Southern African producers and supplies cosmetic manufacturers throughout the world.
Our Philosophy drives us:
Individuals can achieve improved health and well-being through the use of natural and organic products. We will best accomplish our goals through small farming communities and cooperatives in developing countries, fair trade or fairly traded practices, sustainable agriculture that optimizes existing resources, and production based upon strong manufacturing processes.
Our Story... begins with a moment of clarity:
When working on women's empowerment for the US State Department in Albania, lightning struck. Dr. Georgia Duerst-Lahti, now our CEO, saw how little local widows earned from stoop labor wild-harvesting, and a vision for a better world began.
The vision evolved into our mission-driven, market-driven company, Duerst Lahti Global, LLC., with the motto of "Do More Good."
Established in 2008, Duerst Lahti Global, LLC. quickly evolved into a holding company with five companies, including DLG Naturals BW (Pty) Ltd. as subsidiaries. Duerst Lahti Global, LLC. and its companies uphold the highest of industry standards as we create jobs for the rural poor. With a focus in Southern African botanical ingredients, we offer new and innovative cosmetic oils to the US and global market, and with continued growth, provide income to thousands of harvesters.
To ensure quality products, Duerst Lahti Global, LLC invests in the supply chain: Our own African production facilities, a well-developed cadre of specialists and experts, and an extensive network of wild-harvesters. Years of development allows us to deliver world-class botanical oils and butters to cosmetic manufacturers.
The results are threefold:
- Creating jobs where unemployment is high, especially for women
- Developing a vast rural harvesting network, offering countless tangential opportunities
- Demonstrating profits are possible in wild harvesting and processing of indigious fruit oils
Sustainability
Good business practices are the foundation of this company and sustainability is the frame:
- Economic Stability: This beautiful country has countless marketable natural resources, yet minimal access to them on an industrial scale. Our vision is to create that accessibility and stimulate an entirely new industry.
- Social responsibility: Most harvesters are women, giving them more economic freedom in the household as they earn income.
- Business Sustainability: Botswana has a disheartening history for wild-harvesting. Far too frequently, entrepreneurs offer the rural poor wild-harvesting jobs only to never return. We have pledged to avoid such a fate, forging expense-reducing systems, maintaining internal controls, and employing exceptional training.
- Environmental Sustainability: Our production focus is on oil from marula, a plant we in part chose for its prolific nature. The marula fruit offers not only an incredible oil but also pulp for food and beverages, shells for landscaping, fuel, and activated charcoal, seed cake as animal food, and other potentially marketable products. After assessing environmental sustainability thoroughly, we know that DLG's maximum production rates will require harvesting less than 5% of annual marula fruit in Botswana. Moving forward, we will implement a marula tree planting program to counter ongoing and devastating loss of marula seedlings in the wild to cows and goats.