Sweet ‘n’ Dried also serves to further 2SCALE’s agenda of empowering women in private sector development as well as creating productive and sustainable food systems. This is through their outputs of dried mangoes, dried ripe bananas, composite porridge flour (pearl millet, sorghum, ripe banana, and carrot), dried amaranth seeds, pumpkin flour, Moringa and stinging nettle powders.
SnD’s activities are well aligned to 2SCALE’s mission to reach empower, improve productivity and net incomes of 750,000 farmers through inclusion in agribusiness clusters. The company has been able to engage the services as well as build capacities of 1,200 smallholder farmers; 60% of whom are women. The farmers provide SnD with fresh fruits and vegetables.
The partnership’s supply of the dried products to 10 customer companies for re-packaging and distribution to over 1,000 direct consumers of the retail packs has promoted competitiveness and inclusive business for the BoP markets and consumers alike.
Furthermore, the dried fruits and vegetables come as an alternative source of nutrients for the BoP consumers in Tharaka-Nithi county, one of the semi-arid counties in Eastern Kenya and its environs. The idea of dried mango peels which had started as a means to mitigate post-harvest waste of the mango fruits are now being embraced as a nutritional and alternative snack.
The partnership will enable SnD to provide year-round affordable, nutritious foods for BoP consumers through the sale of fruits and vegetables. This will not only reduce the post-harvest losses during the high production season but will also extend the products’ shelf life. The drying will in turn make the vegetables available throughout the year.