Bees & Trees Bio Cosmetics break-through in the EU market

Scale-up

Bees & Trees Bio Cosmetics is an Albanian organic skincare brand, first established and produced in Albania, but as the brand has grown, the production has moved to Italy (all products are produced based on the EU Regulation for cosmetics and can be sold anywhere in Europe physically and online worldwide). The core belief of Bees & Trees is in the simplicity of loving yourself and your environment - loving where your soul lives and where your body lives. They show this through clean and organic products, recycled packaging, and the spirit of our social media. Bees & Trees has started very spontaneously, not intended to be a business, which makes it very unique. Their main markets currently are Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and sporadically EU, USA, and Canada. Their five-year mission is to expand in Europe, towards which they have started working hard.

At Bees & Trees, there exist two core beliefs: 

“Everything we do should complement 

1. Loving ourselves.

2. Loving our planet.”

Being this the base of their business, what Bees and Trees has done until now has helped raise awareness about sustainable living, the importance of self-appreciation and love through healthy living, and taking care of our bodies.

Simply put, they create new skincare products from scratch with the aim to target specific skin needs and while doing this, giving a sense of self-comfort. Most of all, everything is done while loving nature, the provider of our ingredients. They do this for all those who appreciate self-care, clean living, and eco-living.


What was the challenge?

Rona, the founder, has been rock climbing since high school and mountains have a special place in her heart. Back in 2011 when she was frequently going in the mountains for rock climbing, she really needed an organic sunscreen to use while climbing and couldn’t find one. She used to be very decisive to not use chemical sunscreen (what couldn’t be found in the market back then), she tried to create one herself at the lab of the University. A lot of friends started asking her to make one for them also, and the circle of people that wanted it grew very fast. After the sunscreen, she made a natural moisturizer and that's when she realized, she could start a business out of this. She created an account on Instagram / Facebook where she started sharing her passion and experimented with formulations until graduation. In 2016 Bees & Trees was officially registered as a business.
Until 2017, when they opened their first shop at a shopping center in Tirana.

What is the solution?

Currently, Bees and Trees has ten EU-registered products and are in the process of launching three new ones (one of which is in the process of being patented). Their expertise is in face care products and have been solely focused on developing face care products. They don’t plan to expand on other areas until they feel to have successfully completed this one.

Nothing would be possible without the team in Italy and their experience in face care formulations, production, and business development. They think moving the production to Italy has been the smartest move they’ve done. Currently, they sell in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia (sporadically in the EU, USA, and Canada). This year they opened their first studio of Facial Treatments with Bees & Trees products in Tirana but saw the need to bring it to Pristina and Skopje too.