Thika-based fruit processor Del Monte Kenya Limited has lined up a $4 million (Sh516.8 million) investment in a pineapple freezing facility to reduce post-harvest losses and improve its fresh produce supply chain.
Del Monte Kenya Managing Director Wayne Cook said that the freezer will be set up before the end of this year, noting that this will help the company in balancing alternating market demands.
“We’re investing in a facility where we’ll start having the capability to do frozen pineapples. That will give us very good flexibility because the market changes all the time. So, when the market is maybe moving away from canned products, then we have the fresh that we would have frozen. If it moves away from fresh, then we can divert our raw material to canning,” he told Business Daily in an interview on Wednesday.
Mr Cook said that the frozen products will be targeted for both the local and the export markets, noting that there’s a particularly growing demand overseas as consumers move away from canned products to fresh and frozen.
The firm, which has since diversified its plantations to grow other fruits such as mangoes and avocados, further said it’s looking into aggregating mango produce from the neighbouring community of farmers in the race to expand its juice blending operations.
This, Mr Cook said, has been informed by market trends, which show that the mango juice range has grown to become one of the firm’s biggest movers.
The MD said the aggregation line will also be installed before the close of the year, just in time to start the collections during next year’s mango harvesting season.
Currently, the firm processes about 400 tonnes of mangoes in a year, with Mr Cook saying they’ll be seeking to double the volume with the new collections from farmers.
“We will be installing a small line, which had been initially designed to just utilise our mangoes, but now there will be a need to try and procure more produce. So the line will be installed this year, and I believe at the start of next year’s mango season we could start looking for growers,” said Cook.
“If it works really well, then we would need to invest in additional lines, and then it would become a much bigger-scale operation.”
