agricultural

In March 2018, Kathleen (Kath) Lestina, a business owner and designer from the United States, traveled to Zen Naturals' headquarters in Cali, Colombia as a Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) volunteer. The company's Zue Beauty line is a brand of quinoa-based natural cosmetics that emphasizes sustainable, ethical manufacturing and fair trade in order to improve the lives of quinoa farming communities in Colombia. Through Zue’s Give-Back program, customers are empowered to donate to Colombian organizations, contributing to the company’s two central goals: providing high-quality natural skincare products and generating social and environmental change.  F2F volunteers have been integral to the growth of Zue, as several agricultural and technical volunteers have helped train indigenous farmers to harvest quinoa. Other F2F volunteers have assisted with marketing, branding, and digital media. The purpose of Kath’s visit, the most recent F2F-Zen Naturals partnership, was to assist Zue’s public re...

F2F volunteer, Bryce Malsbary,  an international business development expert,  traveled to Colombia in January of this year to offer his business expertise to natural cosmetic company, Zen Naturals.  Based in Cali, Colombia, Zen Naturals sources their natural ingredients from the nearby Department of Cauca. Zen Naturals works directly with the Paez indigenous communities that grow the quinoa used in many of their products.  As their business continues to expand, they have maintained their core values of ethical manufacturing, fair trade practices and loyalty to producer communities.  The goal of this assignment was to help Zen Naturals with their business strategies to positively affect sales and to efficiently aim their marketing efforts. Bryce held brainstorming and training sessions that helped employees to accomplish this task.  The training activities included both individual and group meetings to evaluate which actions were needed to improve product a...