Name:
Name of Business:
Email:
Fatou Manneh did not set out to build the Gambia’s first spiced tea company. She set out to solve a problem she kept encountering in her work as an entrepreneurship and agricultural trainer: women farmers growing herbs and cereals with nowhere reliable to sell them, and a market full of imported products that local agriculture could easily supply.
Jelmah Herbella became her answer. The company processes locally grown herbs and cereals into teas, honey, herbal seasonings, and baby food, blended recipes that carry a distinctly Gambian character and nutritional intent. But the processing operation is only half the story. Sitting behind it is a farmers’ platform that brings groups of women together under one umbrella, encouraging them to grow herbs through permaculture, in backyards, in car tires, sacks, and broken pans, and sell into a guaranteed market. The enterprise Fatou built is, in this sense, both a business and an access point: a way for rural women to earn from what they grow, and a way for the Gambia to stop importing what it already produces.
Winning the WAYA Rising Star Award in 2022 marked a turning point. The prize money funded a comprehensive rebrand, organizational structure, product identity, marketing, website, social media presence, alongside land acquisition and processing machinery capable of meeting international standards. What the award gave Fatou beyond capital, she says, was confidence and visibility: a platform that opened doors to recognition across Africa and brought her into rooms and onto stages she had not previously accessed. For a woman building the first tea company in her country, that kind of recognition is not a luxury. It is part of how the market learns to take you seriously.