FFT

Fresh Food Technology from Tiel, the Netherlands, proves that a social project in India can lead to a very interesting commercial spin-off. Over 40 percent of all fruit and vegetable in India is lost before it gets to the market. The reason: the chain from farmer to consumer is badly organised and a good infrastructure is missing. The Indian apple chain is exemplary. Apples are grown at high altitude in the rugged Himalayas. The farmers bring their apples from the orchard to the paved road with donkeys or large bags on their backs. For sales, they are at the mercy of middlemen with unfair contracts. Packaging is done badly, roads are a series of holes, refrigerated transport is lacking and there is hardly any normal cold storage. Van Amerongen, a multinational from Tiel specialized in the preservation of fruit and vegetables, wanted to offer a solution to this problem. Through its sister company Fresh Food Technology, the company started working in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, along with a local partner, an NGO. "We have adressed the project very businesslike from the beginning," says Edwin Willemsen of Fresh Food Technology. "Our local partner has mobilized four cooperative apple farmers. Those cooperatives are co-owner of a joint venture controlled by the Indian NGO, farmers and ourselves. We then set up four collection points where farmers can sell their apples to the joint venture immediately after harvest. "There, the apples are sorted, chilled and packed well and the quality is monitored. The prices for apples are defined together with the farmers. If the joint venture is profitable, farmers get a premium over the apples that they have sold. When that process was fully started, Fresh Food Technology has, financially supported by the Dutch Foundation Het Groene Woudt, built a state-of-the-art cold storage in the middle of the Himalayas. Willemsen: "The farmers are trained to pick the apples in at optimal ripeness. Then we can get the apples in cold stores within 24 hours, where they can be stored for ...