Zambia Gold honey has a rich aroma and dark color unique to Zambia. It is produced in an 11,000 square mile forest, far from industry, commercial farming, and large populations. The beekeepers who cultivate Zambia Gold climb trees and smoke out the beehives to harvest the honey. Our farmers are independent cultivators who learned the craft from their ancestors, and continue to use those same methods today.

 Zambia Gold honey is USDA certified 100% organic. The USDA seal on the label guarantees that Zambia Gold is grown, harvested, and packaged in an environment free from pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and genetically engineered crops.

Zambia Gold purchases honey from Forest Fruits, a fair trade co-op of beekeepers in the Northwest Province. Monthly incomes are less than USD 10.00 per month before producing honey; however, this income increases by 35 to 100% when farmers are trained. Forest Fruits works with 6,000 beekeepers and their families to help them grow their honey businesses and improve the quality of their lives.

Zambia Gold is a small organization run entirely by students from Gonzaga University that exports fair trade goods from the Northwestern Province of Zambia. Through practicing accompaniment, Zambia Gold cultivates a partnership between students from Gonzaga and the people of Zambezi, Zambia in pursuit of sustainable economic and educational development.

For the past eight years, the Zambia Gold team has worked with the Chilena Basic School in Zambezi to build and fill a school library with 20,000 books. The library opened to the public in the summer of 2015, and Zambia Gold is now supporting the maintenance of that facility as well as inquiring within the Zambezi community about what educational needs they see.

We invite you to join us in enjoying some of the world's most unique honey while contributing to the economic and educational empowerment of Zambezi. All profits from the honey go toward our mission of sustainably empowering and uplifting the Zambian community we have grown to love.

Each Zambia Gold intern, at some point during her or his time at Gonzaga, travels to Zambezi through a study abroad program and spends a month immersed in the beautiful Zambian community. It is not our wish to force implement our own ideas of what would help a community that we only spend a month visiting. Instead, we believe in the practice of accompaniment—walking alongside our Zambian sisters and brothers in order to build a better future for us both.

You can read more about the practice of accompaniment on the “Our Team” section of this site. Clicking on our advisor, Dr. Josh Armstrong, will direct you to a piece he wrote on the topic.