Final Products

Dried fruits and vegetables for export

Required Inputs

Agricultural produce (tomatoes, mangoes, bananas, grapes)

Competing Products

Low competition
Imported dried fruits and vegetables

Potential for Export

High

Complexity – Type of Process

Medium – thermal process

Technology

Solar drying, hot-air drying, cold storage and packaging

Equipment and Material

Boilers, heating chambers, hot air dryers, cold storage and packaging machines

Human Resources

Manual labor, quality control engineers, food safety and marketing specialists

Forward Linkage

Export market

Local/Regional/Nationwide

Export and local markets

Backward Linkage

Farmers

Supporting Entities

Equipment and packaging material suppliers, testing facilities and marketing services companies

Competitive Edge

Could be lower cost and more tailored to market needs (sizes, etc.) as produced locally

Revenue Stream

Sales of dried fruits and vegetables

CAPEX

Consists mainly of the cost of machinery with an average of 752K EGP

Investment Size

Small (between 500k-5M EGP)

Note: This CAPEX represents the indicative investment size, however, this investment opportunity can grow in implementation to a larger-sized investment.

Key Challenge

Seasonality of produce and maintaining high-quality control and assurance measures, access to suppliers, marketing and sales, meeting product specification and standardization and absence of dedicated land for cold storage

Advantages

High availability of supply and high demand

Potential Pathways to Growth

Production of packaged and branded dried fruits and vegetables of different sizes and for different markets – natural/healthy snack mixes – production of natural extracts/powder as feedstock/final products

Environmental

Reduces waste of agricultural produce and processing material close to the field, reduces emissions in transportation

Social

Increases returns on agricultural activities and creates job opportunities for both unskilled labor and women

Relevant sub-market

Dried products

Lies within the following
value chain/cluster(s)

Tomatoes, food processing and packaging

Impact

Promotes value-addition to agricultural products