Transcript
Miyonga fresh greens as we say our company, as we say, via the production of fresh fruits and vegetables that goes forth expert in the process of actually exporting fresh fruits and vegetables. What we did realize is that consumers are looking for the perfect fruit, but then a lot of waste is actually happening for the fruit at the farm gate level, because the perfect fruit, not every fruit, especially when you’re working with the smallholder farmers, not every fruit can be the same size. So a lot of fruits, we realize that about 40% of all the fruits were getting wasted at the farm gate level and the ugly fruit and the perfect fruit still have the same nutritional value. So what we then decided was to find out how can we reduce this waste, because when the fruits are wasted, it’s not just the waste of the fruit, it’s also one, a waste of all the natural resources that were used in production of the food and waste of the human resource what was used to grow the food, as well as a waste of the income adding opportunities for the farmer.
And most of our farmers are actually women, and we know that women actually reinvest about 80% of their income back into the lives of their families. So this is a solution that we came up with: if this fruit is actually dried, what it does is it increases its shelf life and you can’t throw it. And then the dried fruit and the fresh food still have the same nutritional value. In that way, we are helping to reduce food waste. So we dry it and turn it into fruit chips, which is like snacks that you can eat. And we also turn it into powders. And the powders can be used for making smoothies, baking, making sauces, or salad dressing. So we are also contributing to good nutrition. Then the second thing is that in terms of addressing the SDG innovation is that ideally in most institutions or in most countries you have farmers who take produce to the factory. So what we came up with is an innovation that changes the whole model.
Instead of having the farmer taking the fruit to the factory, we came up with a, you know, a mobile factory, we call it Willing Fruits. So what Willing fruits does is that it’s a mobile factory that goes to a farm, and the farms are in different regions, and then it processes the fruit, so the farm gets to a level which is closer to the farmer. What this helps to reduce is because of the seasonality of the calendar, we have different regions in the country that use different ecological tools. So the fruits come in season in different fruits. And when one fruit is in season in one region, it is usually in high supply. There’s surplus and there’s a lot of it going to waste. So you go there and you process the fruit of the farm gate level when the fruits are out of season in that region, the mobile factory then moves to the next region and does the processing there. We did this because we’ve noticed that there are many donor funded organizations that have actually set up factories or small cottage industries within rural areas, but they are not working in a certain mass. They’re probably working on before four months when the fruit is in season, then the rest of the year it is idle. So what that means is that what are the people who are working in that factory doing? And then you have this huge investment that’s not really working.
So when you have a mobile factory it means that this investment can be used in different parts and different people can gain employment. So that’s how we are critically helping to create employment. And because it’s a mobile factory, it’s also helping in terms of infrastructure and in development. And one other thing that is the fourth SDG that we are actually addressing is the issue of climate change. When we talk about food waste, we cannot ignore the issue of climate change and what food waste does to climate change. They say that if all the food that is wasted is put together, it’s actually going to be the whole size of Brazil. And that food waste actually produces more carbon emissions than any other source of production. So in terms of SDGs, in summary, we are addressing the issue of food waste. We are creating decent employment because we are teaching the farmers on how to process. We are creating employment by employing the farmers in the region, in the mobile factory and innovation and infrastructure. We have our Willing Fruits innovation that is a mobile factory. And the last thing is, of course, addressing the issue of climate change by reducing food waste.
How does upcycling of food work? So the concept of “upcycling” is actually trying to use something that would have been discarded and not used and adding value to it in such a way that it can actually be consumed again and made use. So that’s what upcycling is all about. It’s almost like the difference between upcycling and recycling is that you’re not using the same thing, but you’re using something that would have been thrown away. So this is in the industry when you’re talking about a food waste usually have different grades of food, when you go to the farm and you’re harvesting fruits, there’s a certain class of fruits that code class A. This is the first type of fruit that meets the specifications. That’s the cosmetic specifications. It is not diseased, it’s the right size, right diameter. So that’s class A. So usually there’s a second class of fruits called class B, class B is what people usually find attractive. Think about when you’re going to buy fruits, you as an individual, what you usually do, the first thing is you look to see what looks good for you.
But what happens to the rest of the foods that don’t look so pretty? You leave it in the supermarket shelf. What do you think happens to that fruit after three days or maybe five days? It usually gets dumped or wasted. So what we do is we take that and we add value to it. That is from the farm gate level, right from the beginning at the farm gate level. You take that fruit that would have been thrown away or dumped away and you add value to it. Adding value means you are turning it into or transforming it into something that would also have some commercial value or also some human use. So you take the fruit that was grade B or what people call “rejects”, and you dry it or after drying, you can also turn it into powder. So when it is in the dried form you will realize that its market value is actually higher than when it was fresh because it has a longer shelf life compared to the fresh. If you take a dried fruit and the fresh fruit, the fresh fruit would probably last you maybe seven to ten days at most depending on the level of redness, while the dried fruit can take you ten to twelve months. We’ve actually just upcycled the fruit. So that’s what upcycling is all about.
I joined as a volunteer mainly because I was interested in ensuring that we are actually taking care of the environment. And when I joined as a volunteer, at that point I was working as a journalist. So my main role was actually communication and I volunteered to write stories, to write blogs about what young people are actually doing to help with the conservation of nature. So right now in the process of volunteering, I did get involved in other conferences, made presentations in various conferences of the work that we were doing and that was quite exciting. At this moment what it does help me know is to still keep me aligned to the information or the concerns or the actually global interest when it comes to nature and conservation. So I would say I’m an advocate for conservation of nature and the environment.
It’s a strong learning curve. I would see that we are living in a time where there’s a lot of interest in actually supporting women, and women in business, which is really good. And the situation may not have been the same about three or maybe seven years ago because we have been able to benefit a lot from changed policies, government policies that for example, encourage women to be in business and that women be located a certain percentage of procurement opportunities. So that is nice. We also have been able to benefit a lot from training opportunities. For example, the international trade center has a program known as “She Trades”.
It’s actually working to help to improve women or empower women that are in business and want to get involved in exports. Some of the challenges you do face, of course, there may be some form of gender discrimination in the sense that you almost have to work twice as hard to prove yourself. When you’re in situations where you are working with men, it just makes you work twice as harder to prove yourself. So that’s a main challenge. So, back in the sense that it is possible to prove yourself and indeed we have proven ourselves. Similarly, we have been in various forums where we were presenting our business against other businesses that are not led by women and we came up as the winner from our innovations. So it just shows that it is not about being a woman or being a man. As long as your idea is good and you have done your homework, then you can prove that you can deliver, then the opportunities will open up for you.
Incidentally, at that particular time, the program, the “lab of tomorrow” that is run by the German development corporation was actually interested in working with companies that are helping to reduce food waste and they’re having a workshop to see, “how can these companies work together to see how they will reduce food waste?” So the lab of tomorrow did invite us to Germany for this initial workshop to do some design of what we would actually do. This is like a rapid design of “what are the solutions that you can come up with?” and then what you can implement. And this was pretty useful because you were then able to cut where the waste happens across the supply chain and where we will actually come in in terms of solving the problem. And so just from that workshop, three years – five years – later, I mean, we have already started to implement what we had proposed to design. They have supported us in coming up with a feasibility study, first of all, to determine what were the amounts of waste that are present, making a strong business case as to why we should actually invest in a mobile factory. Then also coming more into the macro level of, of all the amount of fruits that are available, which value chain and where in the value chain does the waste happen? So this, this feasibility study and it is very important and I keep telling people who are in business that you need to do your research before you actually get involved in the business. Research what the problem is and what the solution is, and if the market is willing to actually take up the solution that you have provided.
