Processing Food

It is refreshing to note that private businesses in Zambia and Tanzania have acknowledged the power of food processing as both a viable business sector, and a natural and necessary food security option.

Over the last two decades Zambia has seen food processors come and go, and some have actually stood the test of time and survived the good times and the bad times.

In the last three years some old food processing investments have resurrected under different names but essentially on the same premises with the same old machinery and equipment.

New entrants to the food processing sector have emerged with options for citrus fruit processing that look to the Luapula and North Western Provinces for out growers under new schemes that should encourage rural farmers to invest in fruit orchards. The cashew nut plantations in the Western Province have also been targeted as a source for inputs in a nut processing plant.

East African investors are reported to have invested on the Copperbelt in an edible oil processing plant that will supplement the current processing capacity which is mainly focussed on Lusaka.

History teaches us some interesting lessons about the food processing sector in Zambia.

First, it is very important that the food processing industry should be able to access competitive pricing for water, sugar, electricity, and oil based fuels if it is to flourish and remain sustainable. These requisites all go towards the cost of doing business.

Second, the food processing sector must be able to access cheap money from the financial markets such that the sector can grow and expand.

Third, training institutions must support this sector by providing courses that support the relevant human resource development requirements which ensure that the food processing industry is adequately staffed with professionally trained personnel.

Fourth, bottling, canning, and packaging capacity must be upgraded to meet regional and international standards.

Fifth, quality and quantity standards must be set and maintained through the assistance of the Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) and the Zambia Weights and Measures Agency (ZWMA). These standards comprise a mixture of both mandatory standards and voluntary standards that ensure that Zambian processed food is regionally and internationally accepted.

Sixth, food processing companies must learn to collaborate and consolidate so that they can target markets beyond the Zambia borders where quantity and consistency of supply is essential.

Seventh, there must be a sufficient number of investors in the sector to ensure competitiveness for producer crop pricing, and to comprise an industry that can afford some pullouts and failures.

Tanzania has opened up its food processing industry to foreign investment and aims to target markets in the region, the Middle East, and possibly markets further abroad.

In order for the export goals to be realised Zambia and Tanzania must coordinate all the necessary mechanisms to create a scenario where food processing will not only succeed, but will become a major foreign exchange earner for the local economies.

The current environment promotes an uphill ‘go it alone’ philosophy for the development of the food processing sector.

West Africa, Asia, and South America have invested in developing the food processing sector to the extent that dozens of products have been put on the shelves using sweet potato, mango, guava, cassava, banana, yam, soya bean, and other easily grown crops as input raw material.

Food processing allows new cuisines to be developed with relatively very little input.

What Zambia considers surplus and useless seasonal fruit and crops, a food processor regards as valuable input for the factory and could alter the balance between characterising a country as poor and food deficient, or healthy and food self sufficient.

There are glimmers of hope in the supermarkets, airports, and markets when new dried fruit products are displayed on the shelves. Interesting flavours of roasted ground nuts can be purchased at selected shops. A variety of dried vegetables are now available in major supermarkets. Dried meat is now packaged in small portions for the snack meal.

These above products are commonly seen in South African shops but represent only the tip of the iceberg of processed and packaged foods. A whole industry can be aggressively built around food processing that will mop us the wastage that is experienced in Zambia through every season of selected fruits, crops, vegetables, honey, fish, meat, and even exotic edible insects.

The constant emphasis that Zambia has placed on the need to process and add value to the huge amount of copper that is mined in the country, should also be put on food processing which has a more profound impact on the quality of lives of local people.

The investment and other requirements to process copper are far more extensive and complex than the investment required to process food products.

This may be an opportunity to take stock of what really matters to the average person. Is food availability and access more important than the goal of adding value to copper? Which option comes out tops on the priority list? Which option is easier to realize?

Published 15 June 2010