Marula-King focusses on high-value African plant-based natural products for the beauty and personal care industries. We are a bulk supplier of Marula-, Manketti-, Baobab and Kalahari Melon Oils to the international market. Our oils are extracted from the freshest kernels available and it is collected on a sustainable basis by our community partners within the guidelines of ethical trade and traceability. We have extraction facilities in situated in Namibia and South Africa and have a total capacity of 100 tons per year.
At Marula-King we believe in collaborative agreements. We believe that the best long-term sustainable strategy for our wonderful oils are the development of products and markets in conjunction with our business partners.
The business is moulded on 3 pillars namely Quality, Demand and Collaboration
Quality
We pride ourselves on having some of the best quality oil in the market, with the acid – and peroxide values well below the accepted norm. Our oil is “cosmetic ready”, which means that the total colony count, yeast and moulds and e-coli values are extremely low, most of the time not detectable.
The quality of the oil is attained by using the freshest raw material, which is collected by our highly trained wild harvesters and a 3-tier filtering process:
- In the first level the fines and water are removed
- Secondly the yeasts and moulds
- and in the final level, the bacteria
Our filtering systems are also engineered to remove all resin and gums, leaving the oil thin and soft, without changing the natural composition of the oil. The final tier of filtering is 0.1 micron.
After filtering the oil is tested at an accredited independent facility. The oil is packaged in 210 litre tight head food grade plastic drums and each drum is tested and given an individual lot number. Ten lots make up a batch, which in turn will get its own batch number, making the oil completely traceable back to source of raw material.
Demand
Each business partner has their one needs and by aligning our business to heed the voice of the customer, we are able to supply the best quality oil – where and when it is needed by our business partner. We preschedule manufacturing by client as to ensure that the freshest oil is available when it is needed by our client.
Our model has certain advantages for our partners in the sense that they do not have to continuously look for product, resulting in severe differences in quality, price, genetic material variances (fatty acid profiles) and logistic difficulties. We believe our partners should focus on their core activities and we on ours.
Collaboration
Our philosophy is to grow sustainably with our partners. We pride ourselves in long term business relationships, as it is the only way to ensure the sustainability and future growth of our oils. We are not in the market to sell on-the-shelve-products, as we believe as a manufacturer, that it is detrimental for the development for our business. We view the quality of our product to be superior to others and are destined for partners who appreciate and relate to our principles of collaboration. We are very interest in assisting with the research and development of new products and will endeavour to assist and work together in all projects.