After eight years of planning, hard work and consultations, the Musina Municipality launched their Spirulina initiative and Health Products on Thursday, June 25, at Bolivia Lodge, Polokwane.

Towards the end of the year 2000, the then Department of Provincial and Local Government approached municipalities with a view to providing funding for the creation of local economic development projects through its local economic development fund. Musina Local Mu-nicipality was among the beneficiaries and received a donation of R6 million. The Spirulina project is wholly owned by the Musina Municipality, through an entity called Zelpy 1903 (Pty Ltd), which is controlled by a board of directors.

The mayor of Musina Municipality, Caroline Mahasela, said the idea behind the Musina Spirulina project is to generate income and channel the profits back to the municipality, so that the municipality will facilitate other local economic development projects to benefit the community at large. “This health product, which is made from algae, is a unique product in Africa. This is because of the favourable hot climatic conditions and low rainfall in Musina,” she added.

She said the marketing plan of Musina Spirulina includes, amongst others, the impressive redesign of the product packaging, the development of Spirulina Cream, and sales to pharmacies in Gauteng, North West and Limpopo. “Planned activities of the marketing strategy include listing in major pharmacies and roll-out of mine welfare and prison’s nutritional programmes.”

What makes Musina Spirulina more special is that it is produced in the ideal climate, hundreds of kilometres away from any industries that might pollute the atmosphere and it is dried in a novel turbo-rotor drier that also grinds the material into a fine powder for increased and faster absorption. “The harvesting and drying is done in a unique process. The biomass is concentrated and washed in a single step; from there it is pumped into a turbo-rotor drier. This is the only production plant in the world using this technique, producing a far superior product compared to the process elsewhere,” she added.

Mahasela also launched the municipal and spirulina websites during the function.