SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD PRODUCTION
Dates to powder (not instant) from second grade dates for food and dairy industries
Market
Final Products | Date powder |
Required Inputs | Second grade dates |
Competing Products | Low competition |
Potential for Export | Medium |
Process
Complexity – Type of Process | Medium – thermal processing (food safety controlled) |
Technology | Extraction and spray drying (fluidized bed drying) |
Equipment and Material | Extractor, filters, evaporators, mixers and dryers |
Human Resources | Manual labor, machine operators, chemists and quality control engineers |
Business Linkage
Forward Linkage | Bakeries, milk and juice factories |
Local/Regional/Nationwide | Local Market- Upper Egypt Region |
Backward Linkage | Farmers |
Supporting Entities | Equipment and spare parts suppliers, food safety specialists and marketing companies |
Competitive Edge | Healthy alternative to sugar, as well as high availability of supply with low transportation costs |
Economic Features
Revenue Stream | Sales of date powder |
CAPEX | Consists of the cost of machinery which average around 1M EGP (assumption is producing 1000 tons per year) |
Investment Size | Small (between 500k-5M EGP) |
Considerations
Key Challenge | Absence of marketing services, meeting product specification and standardization, supply access and quality |
Advantages | Cost-competitive organic ingredient to replace chemicals |
Potential Pathways to Growth | Production, sales and/or distribution of date pit extracts (e.g., date seed oil for cosmetics), production of high protein feedstock for animal feed factories, production of value-added substrates to produce fermentation products – the end-products themselves and bioactive compounds – other products from by-products include date paste, date pits and pressed cake (could be feedstock for animal feed), date jam/spread, date flesh powder and date seed powder |
General Impact
Environmental | Utilization of second grade dates |
Social | Increases return on agriculture dates and creates job opportunities for unskilled labor and women |
Impact on Sub-market(s), Cluster(s) and Value Chain(s)
Relevant sub-market | Intermediary to industries (food, pharmaceutical, wood and paper) |
Lies within the following | Dates, food processing and packaging |
Impact | Promotes value-addition to date production |
Studies
| Serial | File name | Download |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UNIDO IGGE_VC Cluster Competitiveness & BOM |
