Parque Nacional da Gorongosa Moçambique

Gorongosa Fruit Factory

The Gorongosa Fruit Factory began its operations on January 16, 2009.  Located in Vila Gorongosa, the factory will dramatically increase the revenues for the families producing fruit in the Gorongosa District.  Currently, approximately 80 percent of all fruit that goes to market spoils because of outdated collection, processing, and storage practices.

Manager of the Project, Alex Negrão

The factory also aims to generate employment and profit in rural Gorongosa communities, thereby improving local living standards. According to Alex Negrão, manager of the Gorongosa Fruit Drying Factory, drying the fruit is the best way to add value to it. Gorongosa has a great natural capacity for fruit production, which the factory will help unlock and commercialize. The factory will carry the Gorongosa brand name.  The dried fruit is produced entirely by the Park’s local communities and is all organically grown.

The factory offers the products in various types of packaging. Dried bananas, mangoes, and pineapples are packaged in 100- and 200-gram vacuum-sealed bags for retail operators. Dried tomatoes are packaged in 200- and 400-gram vacuum-sealed bags for the restaurant and hotel industry.  However, the factory has the capacity to offer the dried fruit in a variety of different sizes and types of packaging, depending on what the customer requires.

The factory will soon be experimenting with papaya, tangerine, and orange—the most common types of fruit produced in the region. The products will be stored and sold locally and exported to South Africa and other regional markets. The profits generated will help finance the Gorongosa Restoration Project, including various social programs for local communities.

Dried Fruit (Pineapple)

So far, 54 families are selling fruit to the factory from Tambarara, Canda, Vunduzi, and other communities on Mount Gorongosa and its immediate areas. The factory plans to extend that to 500 families.  The revenue for the first month per family was $110, compared with the current $300 per year. Other regions of the country are sending fruit to be dried as well. For now, the factory will process one ton of fruit per day (or approximately 300 tons per year), although this will eventually be increased to four tons per day.

Old structure of the fruit drying factory

All 30 employees of the Gorongosa Fruit Drying Factory come from local communities. The town administrator of Vila Gorongosa has been very helpful to the project, moving quickly to grant building permits so that the factory could begin construction in a timely fashion.  The factory construction team worked tirelessly to complete construction by the end of December, 2008.