MHC (Eco-Micaia) — honey traced from beekeeper to bottle

MHC buys raw honey from beekeepers in Manica province, processes it at its Chimoio factory and sells it bottled. With aggregate records, a quality problem in the final product could not be traced to a bucket — or a beekeeper.

Between 21 and 24 September 2026, in Chimoio, FAMS was reconfigured from scratch for MHC, reusing the barcode-based honey plugin. We brought the field and factory teams into module-based training, mapped the full flow in nine stages — from beekeeper to sale — and field-tested the link between bucket code and beekeeper. Process gaps found one day were fixed the same day and became the next day's field test.

1. 01

   Linking the bucket to the beekeeper at purchase

   The bucket code is tied to the producer at the moment of purchase and follows the bucket into the factory, so quality problems can be traced per bucket rather than only in the final product.

2. 02

   Weight confirmation instead of a waybill

   Instead of issuing waybills, tracking now relies on confirming each bucket's weight. It simplifies field work and removes an annual licence.

3. 03

   Many-to-one batches in the factory

   Several buckets feed one filter and a pressed batch has several sources. The raw → filtered → pressed/blended model keeps those sources, so colour-graded honey (light, medium, dark) and wax stay traceable back to the original buckets.

4. 04

   Hives as custom fields

   The number of hives and their types (traditional, KTB and Langstroth) live in custom fields on the production field, without changing the database schema.

5. 05

   Payment and receipt for the beekeeper

   Each purchase records payment status (pending → paid) and method (e-Mola, M-Pesa or cash in the field), and the beekeeper gets a printed receipt.

• Laravel
• PHP
• MySQL
• Ionic
• Angular
• Capacitor

stages mapped in FAMS, from beekeeper to sale

9

reconfiguration, training and field test in Chimoio

21–24 Set 2026

Designing the process with field and factory staff in the same room shortens everything: gaps surface during training, get fixed the same day, and the next day's field test already validates the fix.

• 

  SDG 2 · Zero Hungerprimary

  Every purchase is tied to its beekeeper, with confirmed weight and a printed receipt, so honey income arrives as accurate, identifiable payments.

• 

  SDG 12 · Responsible Consumption and Productionprimary

  Traceability from bucket to bottle: moisture, sugar (Brix), colour and lot make it possible to cut losses and account for every processing stage, with signed production reports.

• 

  SDG 15 · Life on Landcomplementary

  The Zomba honey service centre sits in the Chimanimani National Park buffer zone: auditable data supports a honey value chain compatible with conservation.