Soapberries
A 100% natural, wild-harvested product of Honduras.
Eco-Smart
Soapberries are smart for your pocketbook and smart for your health. It makes sense to use a cleaning product that is economical, good for the environment and gentle on your skin.
Eco-Clean
Soapberries are a non-ionic cleanser that can be used for most household cleaning needs. They are gentle enough to use on skin and hair.
Eco-friendly
Wild-harvest soapberries require no chemical fertilzers. They do not contaminate water supplies and buying soapberries promotes reforestation.
INNOVATION-DEVELOPMENT-INTEGRITY
A different way of doing things..
Our company's name is Integral Development Investments, but the letters I-D-I have more than one meaning for us. We want to set a model of INNOVATION because we desire to see sustainable DEVELOPMENT and use to the utmost the wonderful resources God has given to Honduras. We are motivated to demonstrate INTEGRITY because we desire to honor God with our lives and in every aspect of our business.
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INNOVATION
Albert Einstein is quoted as saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The Eco-Premier brand of soapberry products is an example of using an existing renewable a resource in new way to benefit Hondurans. We are definitely doing something different.
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DEVELOPMENT
Integral evelopment should mean freedom from unhealthy dependency through growing self sustainablity and personal responsibility. Development relates to access to quality educational formation. It is reflected by greater social justice, and has to do with the economic ablity to provide for needs from available resources. It particularly has to do with the creation of a common culture of values, principles that have a positive impact in the human spirit.
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INTEGRITY
We seek to demonstrate integrity in all aspects of our work in the midst of changing government policies, economic and social realities, with all their unforseeable challenges. INNOVATION, DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRITY are core values that we desire to model in every aspect of our company.
The Four Bottom Lines
Environmental
Social
Spiritual
ECONOMIC
It's easy to make a versatile soapberry liquid.
STORIES
Stores of soapberries, life and people
Soapberries in the Forest
One of the many reasons we are working with soapberries is their potential to make a positive impact on the diversification of Honduras´forests. When there is almost one hundred percent of only one kind of tree, as is the case with pine in many of the forests in Honduras, they are susceptible to plaques that[…]
Delight
This is harvest season. Each year we are finding new trees and new people who are interested in harvesting soap berries. It is frequently a little difficult to convince people that the tree has more value than just for shade.
How much should I use?
A pretty basic question, don`t you think? Like everything associated with the soapberry project, we started from zero in knowing the answer to this important question. We compared the berries by weight with what we know about their Asian cousins. Our soapberries tend to be smaller, so you need to use 6 or 7 rather[…]
Harvest 2016
The harvest season for Soapberries is so short that if you turn around twice you might miss it. There are just three or four weeks when the fruit is ripe enough to collect before the heavy rains come and ruin it. Unlike last year, there was an abundant harvest in the Santa Barbara region where[…]
Bubbles
There are a lot reasons that we got involved in selling soapberries. Some of them have nothing to do with cleaning things. Our main goal in forming any kind of business at all was the opportunity to provide a new source of income for folks who live in rural Honduras.
Unlikely opportunity
One of the challenges of making soapberry powder is that it requires a lot of drying. We have to dry the whole berries before we can remove the seed, dry them before we can turn it into powder, and after turning it into powder, it needs to be dried a third time before it is[…]
2015
This has been a year of challenges and blessings. Among other things, for 12 weeks we participated in a business class sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. That meant every Friday we traveled the 4 hours between Santa Barbara and Tegucigalpa in order to be on time for the class, all day Saturday. Every week,[…]
Making small mistakes
We are very new at the idea of running a business and learning how to keep up a website. Especially since we are trying to do this in both English and Spanish, it can be rather intimidating. We know we have a lot to learn. (For example, how to make the pictures always fit in[…]
Our goals–#1 Environmental Impact
We have found more than 250 Soapberry trees in Honduras in 12 different departments. It is a tree that grows well where the soil is not very fertil and is resistant to drought. We are very hopeful that the soapberry tree can be a small part of the solution to the problem of deforestation in[…]