Dear Customers
May has been an amazing month!
With the challenge of dealing with COVID 19 we have been very busy stocking and restocking our outlets in Nassau (our capital city) where most of the virus cases have been reported. It has a population of over 260,000 of the 380,000 total population of the Bahamas. Abaco, to date, has not had any reported cases. Thankfully our production manager, Barbara has been living there since the hurricane so was able to keep our Vendors stocked. We have been focusing on our CORE 3 products Neem Oil, Neem Leaf Herbal Supplements and Neem Leaf Extract which Nick and I live on. If you didn’t know, Neem is a very effective anti-viral as well as an all around immune support. It is an adaptogenic that brings what is out of balance into balance. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself given the right natural ingredients.
Many of you have been emailing asking us how we are doing and if we are reopening our business in Marsh Harbour. Well, what we have decided to do is to move our entire business operations to our farm which is located 13 miles south of where we were, next to the Cassurina settlement. After 27 years, we don’t plan on going anywhere, we love what we do, it feeds our soul. One week after hurricane DORIAN we came to the farm. It was incredible. We had power, water and our little 400 sq ft cottage had survived. Our solar panels were in tact and our water pumps were all working, we had everything we needed. After a couple of days we decided that we would make this a permanent move and immediately started planning.
We commissioned two 40ft reefer containers from SOBEINFO in Jacksonville Fl. One to provide housing for employees and an office. And the other will be outfitted for production. COVID 19 has slowed the process but our first container is due to arrive within the next couple of weeks. The second should follow within another couple of weeks. Meanwhile a lot has been going on in preparing the site to house the containers so we have been extremely busy.
Now for news from the field. Nick has been very busy removing trees that went down in the hurricane. Having forks on his tractor has been a life saver. We don’t have any additional labour, its just he and I because most of our population were evacuated after Dorian and there is limited housing available for anyone wishing to return to the island. Anyone who is here is working in reconstruction so no labour for farms. To date he has removed 1060 trees but, we have also replanted new trees. What we decided, was to replace downed trees with more fruit trees intercropped with Neem trees. We had 10,000 trees prior to the hurricane of which over 7000 were Neem trees. That is more than enough to meet our demands for our production, don’t worry we aren’t going to run out! So now we’re growing more trees for food, every kind of tropical fruit we can. Coconuts, Mangoes, SourSop, Sugar Apple, Breadfruit, Sapodilla, Bananas, Native Plums and Cherries. Making ready for your return to our island and visits to the farm.
Our future plans include building more visitor cottages to offer a holistic retreat experience. Initially we will start with day tours where you can come and bathe with us in the Neem forest and taste and smell all the flavors of the Tropics is season. Stay tuned………
In closing, Nick and I along with Barbara, wish to thank you ALL for your many messages of concern and encouragement that you have sent over the past months. We sincerely appreciate you and your support. We would ask that you please tell a friend about Abaco Neem especially about the health benefits of Neem and how it can help to improve their health. If they have questions just ask them to email me and I will be happy to discuss which products would best suit their needs. We are still shipping out through DHL so please continue to place orders because the most important thing during these times is to keep you and your loved ones immune system strong.
I have been trying to think of how best to communicate with you and have asked our web-manager to install a chat widget on our home page for online chatting. This should be done soon. I also thought of setting up a zoom meeting for those interested in have open conversation with us. I would appreciate any suggestions or if you would indicate if a zoom could be of interest? I must admit I am not that tec savvy but if the interest is there, I will figure it out.
If you have read through to this point, I want to thank you for your valuable time. I am often accused of being long winded but there’s so much to share. Please LIKE our Facebook page Abaconeemltd where I do post photos of images from the farm and share the page with your friends. We depend more than ever now on E-marketing through our friends and family.
Until next time, ”stay Neematized to realize optimum Health!”
Nick & Daphne
Abaco Neem “To Help the Body Heal”