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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: Thursday, August 14, 2025
A multi-million shillings family business that went nuts following the demise of two key founding members has rejuvenated following the creative intervention by Vicky Ozia Eyokia in 2023.
An accountant by profession, Eyokia abandoned her business activities in Yumbe district to take on the honey processing enterprise and the results are encouraging.
Since her intervention, the processing facility has increased its operations close to the previous level and nearly recovered its market share both local and internationally.
It was one of the best honey processing facilities in entire West Nile according to the Uganda National Bureau of Standards but just like most family business in the region, the enterprise almost died when the two lead founders died.
Eyokia began by changing the business name and invested her personal capital to re-invigorate the cottage industry.
Five people including Eyokia are now permanently employed at the processer located along Simsim road in Prison cell, Kenya Ward in Arua City.
She has also reactivated the previous network of apiary farmers who constitute the backbone of the business raw material supply.
According to her records, there are four apiary farmers in Terego district, three in Adumi in Arua City, one in Vurra, one farmer in Maracha and one two farmers in Yumbe district.
The farms are also used as honey collection points in the respective areas where farmers with smaller numbers of hives bring their harvest for sale.
Since the beginning of the year, the facility has churned out about two tons of honey. A liter of processed honey is sold at sh20,000, meaning the honey supplied so far this year is about sh40m.
Meanwhile 500 kilos of comb honey has also been packaged and sold at prices ranging from sh10,000 to sh15,000 depending on availability.
Eyokia has opened a shop in Kawempe, a Kampala suburb where the products are mainly sold.
She also targets agriculture trade exhibitions for networking and marketing opportunities. Her interaction from such networking events has seen the Arua East-West Bee Products sending honey products to Turkey, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Kenya and South Sudan.
In addition to processed honey and comb honey, Eyokia’s processing plant also makes propolis, bee wax and the yeast-less honey wine.
She has acquired two machines for collecting bee venom, a medicinal product with high market value. The machines have not been deployed but their arrival means that soon the Arua East-West bee products enterprise could be opening another important product line soon.
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