Fahad Awadh, founding father of YYTZ Agro-processing
We take a more in-depth take a look at three entrepreneurs tapping into Tanzania’s agribusiness potential, from processing cashews for export and cultivating apples to constructing a poultry franchise community.
1. The entrepreneur bringing cashew processing house to Africa
Fahad Awadh is the founding father of YYTZ Agro-Processing, an export-focused cashew producer based mostly in Tanzania. Regardless of being one of many world’s main cashew growers, Tanzania exports 90% of its cashews in uncooked kind. Awadh noticed a possibility to vary this: by retaining cashew processing in Africa and promoting to a few of the world’s largest client markets.
Awadh made a number of analysis journeys to Vietnam, the place over 70% of the world’s cashews are processed, to be taught extra environment friendly manufacturing strategies. “That’s once I noticed the ample mechanisation and realised that if we have been going to do that, we needed to spend money on mechanisation. We needed to be as environment friendly as they’re as a result of that’s precisely who we have been going to be competing with,” he says.
In Zanzibar, YYTZ processes the cashews by peeling, roasting, and flavouring the nuts utilizing equipment geared up with cameras and optic imaginative and prescient to type cashews by color and dimension.
The cashews are flavoured with native substances and Zanzibar sea salt, provided in dry-roasted or unroasted varieties, and packaged in inexperienced or turquoise, representing the fertile soil and sea from which the substances are sourced. YYTZ sells its ‘Greater than Cashews’ model on-line and in supermarkets throughout East Africa, Europe, and North America.
Learn our full interview with Fahad Awadh: Cashew nut entrepreneur sets up local processing for export-led business
2. German entrepreneur sees potential in Tanzania’s apple market
Whereas fruits like pineapples, bananas, and mangoes flourish in Africa’s equatorial areas, apples are usually much less suited to the local weather, favouring cooler circumstances. Nonetheless, German-born entrepreneur David Runge recognized a singular alternative in apple farming in East Africa. He invested in Tamu Tamu Tanzania, which describes itself because the area’s first business apple farm and nursery, situated 540 km west of Dar es Salaam. The corporate has invested considerably in analysis and improvement to domesticate apple varieties that may thrive in an equatorial local weather.
The apple farm was initially established in 2016 by two younger entrepreneurs who performed preliminary R&D to find out apple varieties suited to those circumstances. Runge’s present enterprise companion, Peter Schuurs – a household good friend – was the primary to recognise the farm’s potential and launched the chance to Runge.
Intrigued, Runge performed his personal analysis and located sturdy demand for apples within the East African market. “I did my very own due diligence. And [whether] whether it is in Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania, at each bus stand, in visitors, folks would promote apples. At each grocery store you’d discover apples. And they’re bought right here for half a greenback a bit. That’s some huge cash,” he explains.
Regardless of this demand, most apples within the area are imported, and Runge noticed a gap to provide the market with domestically grown produce.
Watch our full interview with David Runge: Why this German invested in Tanzania’s first commercial apple farm
3. Constructing a poultry franchise community in Tanzania
Entrepreneur Ann-Elizabeth Swai based AKM Glitters, a poultry enterprise in Tanzania that operates on a franchise mannequin. Fairly than promoting rooster meat and eggs on to customers, Swai’s firm provides franchisees, or “brooder enterprises” as AKM Glitters calls them, with the inputs and technical help wanted to run unbiased poultry operations.
Based mostly in Dar es Salaam, AKM Glitters equips these franchisees – typically smallholder farmers – with a complete bundle that features day-old-chicks, feed, vaccines, medicines, drinkers, feeders, and guidebooks. The corporate additionally presents coaching and extension companies. Franchisees rear the chicks for round 4 weeks, after which they promote them at a 20-30% revenue.
Swai’s journey into poultry farming started throughout her profession on the United Nations, the place she began shopping for day-old-chicks from close by villages and elevating them in her yard, promoting eggs and dwell chickens for meat. In 2006, she took early retirement and invested her financial savings to give attention to AKM Glitters full-time.
Learn our full interview with Ann-Elizabeth Swai: Tanzanian poultry entrepreneur’s innovative franchise model