Trianon Spices Tanzania: sustainable and profitable for farmers and business

July 25, 2023

Trianon Spices is an impact driven spice processing company based in Tanzania, founded in 2019. Their ambition? To become a world leader in regenerative spice production. The Trianon factory processes, packs and exports cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper and clove, which it buys from 1,500 farmers in the region, to sell to large European wholesale buyers. The company used a start-up loan of 500.000,- euros from Invest International through the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) to scale volumes, improve quality and expand sales.

Financing Trianon Spices

Paul de Rooij is one of the two founders of Trianon and explains the purpose of the financing: “With the DGGF financing we can buy machines and construct an additional processing facility to scale up the volumes. To improve the quality, we give farming training and even hire an agronomist to assist the farmers doubling their yield. And we plan to expand our sales to other markets in order to get higher prices for our products.”

Buy spices directly from farmers

“And what also is important, is that we now have the financial means to keep a stock, which allows us to buy the spices directly from the farmer at harvest time. Whereas before, we had to find a buyer for the herbs first. This gives the farmer more financial security. We try to improve things, work conditions and a living income, for farmers. If their production and quality increases, we all benefit”, Paul adds.

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“Employees often say they love their great, locally sourced spices being shared around the world!”

Paul de Rooij
Co-founder and CEO of Trianon Spices

Regenerative spice production

Ivo van der Horst is Investment Manager for Trianon Spices at Invest International. He believes in their focus on a positive impact:

“Trianon strives to become a world leader in regenerative spice production, showing a strong focus on increasing biodiversity. To get there, they need to scale up and as Invest International we are happy to be able to facilitate that. Not only because their spices taste great, but mainly because the impact is evident: besides good prices, they also provide training to farmers and help them with obtaining organic certification.”

SDGs and impact

There’s lots of scope to make impact to make with the Invest International financing. That impact is also reflected in the SDGs:

SDG8 (Decent work and economic growth): additional employment of fulltime and seasonal jobs but also indirect jobs such as drivers, who transport the spices. All employees already receive living wages and have good working conditions.
SDG1 (No poverty): the number of farmers receiving good prices for their (organic) spices will increase from 1,500 to 4,000.
SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production): Trianon assists farmers in making their farming system more sustainable and reducing post-harvest losses.
SDG 15 (Life on land): Trianon actively works with the farmers to combat land degradation, making their farming system more sustainable. This will have a positive impact as well on the surrounding mountain ecosystem, maintaining the high biodiversity in the rainforest areas surrounding the farms in Tanzania.
SDG 13 (Climate action): Trianon assists the farmers to establish regenerative agroforestry systems, such as capturing carbon.