FruVaSe - News

4^th FruVaSe Hybrid-Workshop from 27^th to 29^th April 2022 in Nairobi, Kenya and via Zoom

• All FruVaSe fruit products are very promising and all make use of surplus fruits that otherwise rot in the field/ are lost for consumption; yet, fruits are mostly consumed fresh – strong marketing is required for new processed products.
• Vegetable products retain important micronutrients, most are shelf-stable for at least 6 months and are acceptable by consumers.
• Major challenges and limitations in fruit and vegetable processing
  
  • No high quality seeds/ seedlings available – genebanks need to extend to fruits and vegetables
  • No local biodegradable packaging material available, only few recycling systems for packaging – sustainable packaging solutions are needed
    

• Future research questions for both fruit and vegetable (FV) processing include
  
  • to identify the synergies between technologies that can be used for the production of multiple foods so that equipment can be used throughout the year with different FVs being available during different seasons;
  • cost-benefit-analysis with more reliable data and optimisation of the costs for the whole processing process;
    
  • adapt technologies to local conditions at village level.
• Policy recommendations include
  
  • tax relief for those who are engaged in processing of fruits and vegetables;
    
  • sensitise consumers as they will otherwise not adopt these partly new products;
    
  • allocate cheap credits for FV production, processing (equipment) and to provide (sustainable) energy, re-classification of processed foods;
    
  • organise water and energy issues at community levels – not at household levels.
• Plan for the remaining time of the FruVaSe project
  
  • Establishment of a Fruit and Vegetable Processing (FVP) online platform
  • Joint publications
  • Commercial proof of concept of selected FruVaSe products (UoN, Kenya); incubation workshop at NM-AIST, Tanzania; knowledge exchange and knowledge dissemination (MUG, Uganda)

FruVaSe project team and guests during the first day of the 4th FruVaSe workshop.

 

Impressions from the "University of Nairobi Innovation Week Exhibition" where FruVaSe products were displayed.

Special prize at the trafo:agrar competition

3^rd FruVaSe Workshop from 29^th to 1^st October 2020 via Zoom

• External participants confirmed that post-harvest losses are a major issue among fruits and vegetables, for example, in Uganda about 50% of total produce and partly even up to 80% is lost or wasted.
• The work on guava was appreciated by the extension worker who mentioned that so far guava in Kenya is seen as a child’s food only.
• The development of the different fruit and vegetable products is very promising regarding retention of important nutrients such as iron, zinc, vitamin A and vitamin C, and shelf-life of the products
• The findings of high rates of overweight and obesity among women in rural areas was alarming and need to be included in policy briefs/ information and awareness creation
• It was tested that jackfruit waste in combination with other available agricultural waste can be used for biogas generation (e.g. for lighting and heating) while solar power is the power source of choice for food processing
• For clean water supply, electro coagulation was found to successfully remove fluoride in different water types to allowable limits
• Consumer awareness of the new products is badly needed to create demand and a market

• How to involve farmers and/ or processors
• Type of training materials and dissemination channels – for the short run (disseminate new technologies among established processors or processing cooperative) and the long run (mixed modalities of training with a focus on manuals for extension workers to train e.g. farmers who want to start processing)
• How to ensure sustainability of e.g. a pilot site
• Groups identified for cooperation in each of the six research district

2^ndnd FruVaSe Workshop from 16th to 18th September 2019 at Georg August University Göttingen, Germany

For each target fruit and vegetable at least one or more products have been developed or are under development. These products are:

• All fruit and vegetable products will be assessed for their nutritional value before and after processing and shelf-life stability will be tested. Focus will be on vitamins A (beta-carotene), B9 (folic acid), C, phenolic compounds and minerals such as iron and zinc among others.
• Different processing techniques are currently tested such as cooking at different temperatures, fermentation, drying at different temperatures and various drying techniques namely open sun drying, solar drying, hot air drying and refractance window drying (RWD).
• Energy and water needs for the processing of each product is collected to analyse the needs and possibly improve the processes.
• The willingness to pay for the new products will be tested with consumers in the research areas in each country.

Kick-of workshop 8-10 October 2018 Arusha, Tanzania

Our target fruits and vegetables are:

	Kenya	Tanzania	Uganda
Fruit	Cashew apple	Guava	Jackfruit
Vegetable	Vegetable cowpea	African nightshade	Cassava leaves & Vegetable cowpea

A total of 10 PhD students and 10 MSc students are now working on their proposals to start with the field work in 2019. The focus will be on

• determining the current usage, processing techniques, demands, possible constraints in processing and preservation etc. of the target fruits and vegetables through a baseline survey (all WPs).

• processing techniques to be tested and evaluated regarding the nutrient content of the final products (WP3) and the energy needed for processing and which sources of energy are available (WP4).

• consumer surveys to be applied for testing consumers attitude towards taste, packaging, price etc. of the final products (WP5).