Bakhresa brings good news for farmers

COAST REGION: BAKHRESA Food Products (BFP) is giving farmers every reason to smile in the upcoming harvest season, as its growing demand for raw materials is set to create more market opportunities for local producers.

The company’s ongoing expansion in fruit processing is not only strengthening its footprint in the soft drink industry but also positioning farmers at the heart of its supply chain, as it projects to double its procurement of mangoes from 30,000 to 60,000 tonnes in the next harvest season.

Bakhresa Group’s Head of Public Relations, Mr Hussein Sufian, said the expansion includes the introduction of a new soft drink line, TAM TAM— made from mangoes and pineapples—with a processing capacity averaging 250 tonnes per day.

“We are adding one more fruit processing line with capacity to process 10 tonnes of fruits per hour and an average of 250 tonnes per day,” said Mr Sufian while briefing ‘Daily News’ on Wednesday after visiting the conglomerate manufacturer’s plant at Mwandege Area in Mkuranga District, Coast Region.

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Currently, BFP, subsidiary of the Bakhresa Group, processing plant has three production lines. According to BFP, the mini mum quantity of fruits that a farmer can qualify to sell at BFP is a seven tonne-truck.

And, last year, the plant processed 30,000 tonnes of mangoes, 6000 tonnes of oranges, 1500 tonnes of pine apple and 2,000 tonnes of tamarind. Mr Sufian said the goal is at least to double the number of mangoes to 60,000 in the next harvest season upon enough supply of the fruit.

“We create markets for farmers. As the Bakhresa Group celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, we are proud that BFP alone supports over 100,000 farmers annually by sourcing lo cal fruits,” said Mr Sufian.

The mango and pineapple harvest seasons typically run from October to February, while the orange season spans from May to July. As of yesterday, the company had already procured over 4,000 tonnes of oranges.

On average, the firm purchases all fruits at a rate of 400/- per ki logramme. BFP gets its mangoes sup ply from Coast, Mtwara, Lindi, Tanga, Morogoro, Kilimanjaro, Morogoro, Shinyanga, Tabora, and Geita regions while oranges and pineapples are from Coast.

BFP is a 500 million US dollars (1.3tri/-) investment that began operations in 2011 and has since grown into one of the leading soft drink manufacturers in Eastern and Central Africa.

BFP’s Dispatch Assistant Manager, Mr Simion Alando, said the company supplies 300,000 cartons of soft drinks to the market daily and the number increase to 400,000 cartons in summer. BFP has created over 1,000 direct jobs.