Bring the processing to the fruit.

The approach — hub and spoke

Rather than one large central facility — which would require moving fruit long distances over poor roads, defeating the purpose — the design deploys multiple small processing centres located in the growing areas themselves.

• 200,000 kcal burners at each site, appropriate to village-level operation.
• Two-tunnel configurations per centre.
• Standardised quality protocols identical across all locations, so output from any centre is interchangeable to a buyer.
• Centralised marketing — collective sales aggregating volume for negotiating leverage.

Projected outcomes (modelled design targets)

• Multiple processing centres serving a large number of producers.
• Substantial reduction in post-harvest loss across project areas.
• Meaningful average income increase for participating farmers.
• Reduced rural out-migration through local opportunity.
• Development of local technical expertise.

These are modelled design targets for this configuration, not measured results — we have not yet built this network.

Principles we design around

Local ownership drives maintenance discipline in a way contracted management does not. Scale must match local production, not aspiration. Quality consistency across sites is what makes collective marketing possible — one bad centre discredits the whole network. And regular exchange between centre operators is, by design, the most effective ongoing training mechanism.