How Ni Made Roni's Made Tea empowers women and embraces sustainability in Bali

Ni Made Roni is the founder and CEO of Made Tea, located in Bali, Indonesia. She employs local homemakers, many of whom are women , for production and packaging. Ni Made Roni takes pride in adhering to strict natural farming practices, using only natural fertilisers and organic pesticides.

Collaborating with PUM, she developed training methods to involve women from her community in a more business-like and sustainable way. Through a grant of PUM’s Hans Blankert Fund she was able to purchase new machinery, enhancing productivity and extending the shelf life of her products. Remote advice on marketing, branding and a webshop, further boosted her business, enabling international sales.

Remote Advice

Made Tea asked for PUM’s collaboration in the field of Incubators. The client wanted to learn more about starting a training initiative for women in her community to involve them in a more business-like and sustainable way. PUM expert Emmy Voltman gave Roni remote advice through several Teams sessions. She concluded that, before Roni would be ready to train other women, PUM should give her advice in a few other areas first. Like improving her production process, solving issues around certification and packaging, and strengthening her marketing strategy. Another expert, Miranda Hesselment has been mentoring Ni Made Roni during the process. Ni Made Roni: “Miranda’s guidance has brought significant changes to our company.”

At the same time, PUM representative Theo Vermeulen saw more potential in Roni’s business. He explains: ‘After a SWOT analysis, I discovered that Made Tea is very popular in the market, and that there is more demand for tea bags than loose tea. At the same time, the company was not able to increase production fast enough and keep up with the (international) orders. In the packaging line, where they manually weighed and filled, the team could not produce more than 3.000 tea bags per day. Also, the storage of the loose tea in plastic bags was at a maximum, there was no more space.’

Grant from the Hans Blankert Fund

Theo contacted HBF and together with the client he submitted a request for two machines. ‘We asked for funds to purchase a machine that can produce 8.000 tea bags per day. This is a lot more than the current method with the same number of employees. Furthermore, we bought a vacuum packing machine for the tea products. By using this machine, the shelf life is longer, and less storage space is needed.’

Jan Trapman, HBF grant coordinator, comments: ‘The overall aim of a grant from the Hans Blankert Fund is to help businesses develop economically, socially and sustainably. In this case, the grant makes a real contribution to a permanent improvement in the operating result: thanks to the machines they can meet the increasing (international) demand. The client must always finance part of the investment, namely 50%. To encourage female entrepreneurs, like Ni Made Roni of Made Tea, the threshold for them has been set at 40%. In 2022 the contribution of the client was temporarily changed to 25% and 20% to extra support entrepreneurs after the difficult COVID-19 period.’

Ni Made Roni

Owner of Made Tea

‘We are very grateful for the support we received from PUM and HBF. The machines allowed me to speed up the production process ‘from farm to cup’. In the near future, I would really appreciate receiving PUM’s support in setting up an incubation training programme on organic farming for woman cooperatives.’

Impact and follow-up

Because of the support through PUM with HBF, this small enterprise can continue to grow and meet the demand for the time being. The client received another remote advice, this time on marketing, branding and the webshop. PUM expert Sylvia Bark-Schram discussed with Roni her analyses of the (online) promotional presentation and provided insights into different development strategies that could be implemented to enhance (online) sales.

Theo Vermeulen concludes: ‘The international sales are indeed expanding; Made Tea is now also selling to a chain of shops in England and the United States. In the medium and long term this means that Roni will take her business to a next level and that she will need more land to grow tea and herbs. For this purpose, she has already approached about 250 women of the local community who have their own plots. Roni is now ready to start a training initiative; she would like to teach the women how to cultivate tea and herbs with a constant quality. She will buy the end product at fair prices, to help these women socially and economically.’