TheCable

The Kuda Gangara Integrated Tomato Farm, a project by Caraway, an Olam group company in Jigawa state, has recorded its first commercial harvest at 40 metric tonnes per hectare.

The project is part of the backward integration drive of Olam-Caraway in strengthening local sourcing of raw materials for the company’s tomato paste factory in Lagos.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said the 500-hectare project exceeded earlier projections of 30MT per hectare, as the yield was four times more than the average yield in Nigeria.

According to the food processing company, 100 hectares have been cultivated out of the total expanse. It stated that when the complete 500-hectare expanse is cultivated, overall production would be over 15,000 MT from the commercial farm alone.

“Caraway requires 18,000MT of concentrate per annum and with the current backward integration efforts, will be able to reduce the shortfall in sourcing inputs. The company is also on course to attain its expansion plan thereby reducing the gap significantly in the coming years. At present, Caraway has a capacity to produce 44,000 MT of different products under the brands of Derica, Tasty Tom, Jollof Mix, Onion Pepe,” the company stated.

“The current investments by the company stand at $20 million in developing the commercial farming and outgrowers program, crushing, and the plants for processing and packaging.”

Reji George, Olam’s head of farming initiatives, said the investment is driven to complement the thrust and direction of moving agriculture into a self-reliant and sustainable model by the federal government, ensuring enough and quality food to the population as well as environmental sustainability.

“Besides, we are a leading entity in the Tomato supply chain by having a major share of the market and being present in this product over many years,” George said.

“Using significant volumes of tomatoes for our products, the backward integration helps us to achieve self-sufficiency, develop local farmers and provide increased employment opportunities to the local population.

“Caraway hopes to achieve the supply of homegrown and processed innovative tomato product brands of Derica, Tasty tom, jollof mix, onion Pepe etc. for domestic consumption.”

Premender Sethi, business head, packaged food business, Caraway, said the stride in achieving a local supply chain for raw materials represents a complete end to end supply chain solution for domestic markets, right from growing to crushing to processing to packaging for the domestic markets.