Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited Summary

Zambia: Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited    www.sylvacatering.educationzambia.com/

Sylvia Banda is Zambia’s most prominent spokesperson for local food, using her business, Sylva Catering, to promote her cause.  By purchasing her ingredients from regional, small-scale farmers, she showcases the country’s bounty to the upscale clientele who employ her catering services.  Based out of the University of Zambia’s Great East Road campus in Lusaka in the Main Dining Hall, Banda is promoting healthy eating, Zambia’s indigenous foods, and all the while training a new generation of food service professionals who she teaches the merits of quality, ethical behavior, professionalism, innovation, service orientation, and personal drive.

From the catering business, Banda has expanded her efforts into side businesses that process and package traditional Zambian foodstuffs.  The products—Zambian honey, millet, dried seeds, herbs, and local varieties of vegetables—are sold in markets throughout the region and exported to other African countries.

Banda encourages farmers to join marketing associations, and offers training on alternative harvesting methods, as well as the medicinal properties of indigenous plants and foods.  Through her workshops she preaches methods for environmental management, and promotes the idea that hunger can be reduced by growing local food.

Most recently she has designed the Sylva Solar Food dryer to sell as a food processing tool to small scale farmers who will be able to use it to increase their competitive edge. 

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