Nearly 2 million people - mostly women and children - die every year from respiratory diseases related to indoor cooking smoke. This is more than double the number of deaths caused by malaria each year.
Harvesting wood for cooking also diminishes tropical forests. In Kenya, for example, wood gathering has contributed to the destruction of 94% of the original native forest.
But cooking with wood and charcoal also offers an enormous market opportunity, as there are over 23.5 million potential stove consumers in East Africa that spend up to $300 each year on fuel. These households have a strong financial incentive to purchase a $30 stove - such as the charbelle stove (shown above) - that can reduce fuel consumption by 50% as compared to the current 'improved' charcoal stove.
BURN Manufacturing Co. (BMC) aims be the sole manufacturer of high quality biomass cookstoves in Kenya and East Africa. BMC has an exclusive licensing relationship with BURN Design Lab (BDL) - one of the world's leading stove design firms. BDL's JikoPoa stove design was recently selected by Inhabitat.com as one of "Four Cooking Stove Designs That Can Save the World."
BMC will manufacture and sell 3 million super fuel efficient cookstoves in East Africa by 2022. BMC is currently raising $3.8 million to establish a modern continuous-flow manufacturing facility in Kenya with satellite assembly factories in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
BMC is looking for additional equity investors, for more information please contact Peter Scott at: peter@burnmanufacturing.com