Our Partnership in Kenya

At the foot of Mount Kenya, something remarkable grows — and has for over a decade. This is where we source two of our most treasured ingredients: organic macadamia nut oil and organic avocado oil, both from our partner LIMBUA and the network of 5,000 independent smallholder farmers they work with.

What began in 2009 as a small initiative connecting Kenyan farmers to global markets has grown into one of the most transparent, traceable, and genuinely fair supply chains in natural skincare.

Why Kenya.

The Mount Kenya region offers ideal growing conditions — the right altitude, climate, and natural rainfall — making additional irrigation unnecessary. Macadamia trees, avocado groves, and mango trees grow together in agroforestry systems that mirror the traditional, multi-crop farming methods long used in rural Kenya. This isn't a contemporary trend. It's how these communities have farmed sustainably for generations.

Over 90% of our plant-based raw materials are organically cultivated, and our Kenyan partnership is one of the clearest expressions of what that commitment looks like in practice.

How it Works.

LIMBUA works directly with approximately 5,000 certified organic smallholder farmers. To participate, an entire farm must meet certified organic standards — no synthetic herbicides, no pesticides, and soil fertility maintained through natural animal and plant byproducts. LIMBUA provides training, on-site support, and a contractually guaranteed minimum price so farmers can plan with confidence.

Traceability is built into every step. LIMBUA field officers collect harvests directly from farms, weigh crops on-site using mobile digital scales, and verify farmers by fingerprint at the point of delivery. Payment is made immediately via mobile phone — farmers can see the deposit in real time. Crates are labeled with barcodes, making every batch traceable from farm to finished product.

When we count the families supported by this work, organic farming through LIMBUA feeds approximately 25,000 people.

From raw ingredient to finished product — locally.

With our support, the final step of processing — converting both macadamia nuts and avocados into oil — now takes place in Kenya. LIMBUA operates multiple facilities close to the farms themselves, keeping transport distances short and freshness high. Most factory employees come from the surrounding farming families, meaning they are processing ingredients they grew themselves.

This keeps expertise, income, and opportunity within the community. It creates skilled roles in food technology and agronomy alongside manual work — giving young people a reason to stay close to home.

Our avocado oil has carried Fair for Life certification since 2021. Our macadamia nut oil partnership has been active since 2015. Both reflect the same standard: a socio-ecologically sustainable value chain from source to product.

Why it Matters.

Responsible for buying all of the raw materials for Dr. Hauschka Skin Care is Naturamus GmbH, an independent subsidiary of WALA Heilmittel GmbH. Like LIMBUA, Naturamus has Fair for Life certification. A particularly demanding fair trade standard, this seal represents a socio-ecologically sustainable value chain from the source through to the final product. Naturamus also supports the Fair for Life fund managed by LIMBUA by adding a 5 percent premium on the purchase of LIMBUA’s raw materials. The fund has been used in recent years to buy textbooks and notebooks for school children from financially disadvantaged families and to acquire new seedlings and organic fertilizer.

LIMBUA’s commitment is clearly evident throughout the region: The people experience how the added value remains in Embu, how training and further training are actively encouraged and as well as price continuity for the sustainably farmed avocados. That’s really the best thing about it all.

Mr Kunert, what exactly does naturamus GmbH do?

As an independent subsidiary of WALA Heilmittel GmbH, we purchase all the raw materials for Dr. Hauschka Skin Care and WALA Medicines. This involves about a thousand different raw materials, such as essential and fatty oils, fresh plants and pharmaceutical auxiliary substances like emulsifiers or raw globules for medicines.

You purchase the raw materials in organic quality wherever possible, but what do you do if this quality is not available?

If a raw material or sufficient quantities thereof are not available in organic quality, we initiate raw material partnerships around the world on behalf of WALA. The WALA philosophy expressly states that these partners should become financially independent. To do this, they need to sell their products to a wider customer base. We put a great deal of time and energy into implementing these principles.

You have already found a partner for the high-quality organic macadamia nut oil used in Dr. Hauschka Skin Care products. What criteria did this partner have to meet?

Organic quality and fair trade are key criteria for us. We therefore purchase organic macadamia nuts in Kenya and process them to obtain oil in our own production plant for quality reasons. Our local partner is LIMBUA, an organically certified Kenyan company that sells macadamia nuts and avocados that it purchases from smallholder farmers. LIMBUA was established as a result of the impressive ‘macadamiafans’ initiative founded in 2009.

What kind of initiative is macadamiafans and what makes it so impressive?

First and foremost, macadamiafans is based on a social concept. The initiative helps macadamia farmers in Kenya create short channels between producers and consumers. macadamiafans offers farmers and their families direct access to the export market so that intermediaries no longer take a large portion of the profits. This all happens in cooperation with the WELT:KLASSE Foundation. Student companies from Germany are responsible for selling the Kenyan macadamia nuts.

Once again for clarity: you are impressed by macadamiafans but buy from LIMBUA. What is the relation between these two partners?

macadamiafans Kenya Ltd. is the initial source. The founders, Hannes and Matti Spiecker, also established LIMBUA Group Limited to help farmers receive a better income. LIMBUA follows the exact same philosophy as macadamiafans. Whereas the market-related activities of macadamiafans, as a LIMBUA educational project, still follow the original idea behind the initiative and focus solely on student companies, LIMBUA also sells directly to large, commercial customers. This improves market access for the smallholder farmers who are already involved in the initiative, including for their other organic products. Since 2009, a major rise in interest has also been seen from neighboring farmers. The expanded customer base means that it is now possible for more and more smallholder farmers to get involved. The latest technology with mobile phones and fingerprints comes into play here.

Mobile phones and fingerprints? That sounds interesting. Can you elaborate?

All macadamia nut purchases and sales made by LIMBUA are digitally recorded using LIMBUA’s computer system. This provides excellent transparency for Kenyan farmers. These use their fingerprint to confirm their identity in the system and log into their account, where they can not only record inspections of their farms by organic consultants but also the number of kilograms of macadamia nuts they are selling to LIMBUA. Once the figures have been recorded, the farmers receive a text message indicating how much money they will receive per kilogram of their nuts. As soon as these nuts have been recorded at the LIMBUA factory using a barcode reader and the quantity has been confirmed, the money is credited to the relevant farmer’s mobile phone account. It really is brilliantly simple! And the whole process takes just a few hours.

You previously mentioned short channels between producers and consumers. But surely LIMBUA has to profit from the sale of the nuts as an intermediary, meaning that the farmers earn less?

LIMBUA naturally has to cover its costs. However, all of the profits currently go into expanding the activities in Kenya to enable more farmers to earn a fair price for their products. The farmers are definitely benefiting from the initiative.

You mentioned that farmer training is also recorded in LIMBUA’s digital system. What kind of training?

The farmers have a wide array of organic farming training courses and consultant visits financed by LIMBUA. The visits and participation in the training courses are basic prerequisites for the conversion of the farmers’ land to certified organic farming. This enables them to vastly increase their earnings as organic produce achieves a higher sales value on the market.

Are farmers not tempted to mix in conventional nuts with the organic ones?

The risk of this is extremely low. When the macadamia trees are in blossom, LIMBUA employees estimate the expected crop yield. If a farmer delivers more nuts than expected, he will only be paid once he has explained where the additional nuts came from. The nuts are also naturally subjected to residue analyses, for example to check for pesticides.

How many people currently benefit from selling nuts via LIMBUA?

In Kenya, 5,000 farmers receive a regular income from selling macadamia nuts to LIMBUA. This naturally benefits their families, meaning that ultimately, over 25,000 people can enjoy a better life thanks to macadamia farming. Many school children in Germany also benefit.

Why does macadamia farming benefit German school children?

It does so on a completely different level. The school children I mean are those who work with macadamiafans and the WELT:KLASSE Foundation to sell the Kenyan macadamia nuts in Germany. Several of them get the opportunity to visit the smallholder farmers in Kenya and gain an extremely valuable experience in doing so. They obtain a clear picture of how the global value chain works and how our purchasing habits affect people’s living conditions in the source countries. If you take care to buy sustainably produced goods, you not only protect the environment but also help to support farming families. By establishing the LIMBUA Foundation, LIMBUA is following a similar concept to WELT:KLASSE in Kenya.

A Kenyan Foundation that uses school children to sell macadamia nuts?

Not quite. The objective is slightly different. The LIMBUA Foundation is a non-profit organization that works with schools and universities in Kenya. It focusses on raising pupils’ and students’ awareness of environmental correlations. It provides lessons on organic farming and biodiversity in general schools and at universities, but also at the LIMBUA tree schools. The aim is to create extensive social commitment that will hopefully create mutual understanding between Kenya and Europe.

Do you simply buy the macadamia nuts from LIMBUA or support the project in other ways as well?

First and foremost, we buy the nuts. However, we also assist the company with marketing, for example. In this regard, we believe that it is important for LIMBUA to not only offer macadamia nuts but also other products as the smallholder farmers’ entire farms are organically certified and used to grow all sorts of products. In 2016, for example, we worked with LIMBUA to have an initial batch of avocados from smallholder farmers in Kenya processed to make oil. We are also naturally aware that companies in the expansion phase can often face major liquidity problems. We have therefore supported LIMBUA in relation to finance matters and pre-financed the harvest, for example. It is simply important to us that we develop a long-term partnership based on social and environmental responsibility. We know that our customers also value this.

A trip to Kenya.

Our macadamia nut supplier LIMBUA not only offers top quality for our products but also reliable prospects for Kenyan organic smallholder farmers. We went to Kenya to take a closer look at how macadamia nuts are grown and to find out how the cooperation works between LIMBUA and the 5,000 smallholder farmers.