Fruit and vegetable processing.pdf (complete document)
Market Opportunities
Fruit and vegetable processing are among the most important agricultural activities for the development of rural businesses. Pre-packaged foods and beverages are among the largest and fastest growing markets in the North and in poor and fragile regions. Currently, there is no fruit and vegetables processing taking place in many developing and fragile contexts. Therefore, multiple opportunities exist at all stages of the value chain for small and medium-sized farmers like drying, pressing, pasteurization, filtration, filling and packaging.
Current Problems
Despite this huge demand for processed and packaged fruits and vegetables, there is barely a food and beverages industry in poor and fragile countries satisfying the demand. One of the reasons is that fruits and vegetables are produced and harvested within a few months and that the crops are often highly perishable. Large amounts of harvest in such a short time pose problems for optimal (cooled) storage and protective transportation and produces lots of avoidable waste. Additionally, the overflow of fresh fruits and vegetables on the market keeps prices very low and deprives small and medium-sized farmers of income. Another problem is that before harvesting, many farmers use chemicals, which are forbidden in a wide range of countries, thus posing health problems for the local population or complicating or even inhibiting exports to regional and international markets.
Local farmers can’t take advantage of these opportunities as they lack appropriate and hygienic storage, processing, packaging and transportation opportunities. The main reasons for this are bottlenecks in their value-chains stemming from lack of know-how and agro-technical means of production.
NOMADES Solutions
To tackle these problems, NOMADES has designed processing plants comprised of extremely solid machinery for the processing, conditioning, and packaging of fruits and vegetables. Most of our projects focus mainly on local transformation of locally produced fruits and vegetables of any kind into natural products. The processing plants we propose can be adapted for different production capacities (100 kg up to 1000 kg raw materials per hour) and different fruits and vegetables. Therefore our solutions help extend the production over the harvest time frame and ensure year-round employment. This helps maximizing positive impacts for the weakest and poorest producers by giving them a guaranteed and fairly priced outcome to their production and employment opportunities on the plant site.
Additionally, implementing local processing units helps solving transportation and storage problems. The pasteurized and packaged products can be stored at least two years after processing what solves the problem of the perishable nature of fresh produce and offers solutions for malnutrition and health problems as well as extended marketing possibilities and higher value added. Another possibility for producers is to organize them in local associations jointly running one processing unit and making them more independent from market speculations.
We have put together some reference production units that can process 100 kg or 500 kg of fruits and vegetables per hour into 100% natural, tasty, conservable pure fruit and vegetable juices, purees, jams, syrups, mashed potatoes, soup, vegetables, sauces, compote ,oils etc. without preservatives and chemicals. We assessed these scales as perfectly suited for on-farm processing that can be installed easily in small and medium-sized farms. The plants require approximately 50 to 150 square meters (not including supplies and product storage). The machines proposed here are particularly suited for continued 24/7 operation since they have very low energy consumption, simple maintenance and maximum operation comfort.