Finally - pineapply!

Have you ever wondered what pineapples look like when they are not in the supermarket? Do they hang down from palm trees? Are they lying on the ground like watermelons? or are they under ground like carrots? I have wondered.... And, finally I got to visit a pineapple farm and see these wonderful sweet fruits in their "natural habitat".

Pineapples, pineapples and more pineapples
We drove about 75 km north of Kampala to a district called Luweero. And finally:... as far as our eye could see: lots of "cactus/aloe vera like" plants, about a 1 meter tall. In between the plants we found pineapples! and Musamba Tonny, the owner of the pineapple farm.

In the middle of the "cactus like" plants we found pineapples!... and pineapple farmer Musamba Tonny.

Pineapple farmer Musamba Tonny is proud of his farm and his pineapples. Most of his pineapples are exported to Europe.

This is the secret! This is how it looks like! One pineapple fruit standing up in the middle of a big "cactus/aloe vera like" plant.

Before becoming a pineapple, it starts as a "flower" in the middle of the plant. Nice!

And then grows into a small pineapple, but still looks quite like a flower.

What is better than fresh pineapple from the market? Fresh pineapple eaten directly in the pineapple farm!  Peter is cutting it for us.

Me! - super duper happy to finally have seen (and held and eaten)  pineapple in its "natural habitat".

But no mangoes...

Because of too much rain this autumn, the mango season was delayed. It was supposed to come in October. We waited up to December. When it finally came, it brought only few and low quality mangoes. Unsuitable for developing our new products based on mango. Very disappointing for the project and for us, but even more disappointing for the farmers. The consequences for them are so much worse. The long awaited income has failed to come, parents can not pay for the children to go to school and the situation for some of the poorest people in Uganda becomes even more difficult.

So, now, both the farmers and we are again back to waiting for mango season. Next is expected to come in March. Will it come? Will it be a good one? Hopefully it will be! And the farmers will get their income and their hard work will bear fruits...

... And we will get the mangoes we need to develop and produce our new products. If we could do with only the pineapples... Life would be much easier then. Pineapples here also have seasons, but still they are available all year round. Unlike mangoes. 

Phu! Mango is such a difficult fruit! But, so incredible sweet and so incredible popular! So, it can't bee overlooked. Our products need mango. So, we are still waiting.

Hopefully, in a few months, I will be able to bring you nice fruity pictures from a mango farm full of mangoes! Until then, let's enjoy the pineapples.

Stop production! - we are out of sugar...

... or out of mango... (they are not in season) .... or out of packaging material.... (it is too expensive, has to be ordered from China and it takes 4 months)...

It is not easy to run a manufacturing company based on natural raw materials. And it is not easy to run any business in a country that is landlocked and has to import almost everything, except from the natural raw materials. Welcome to Uganda!

The sugar crisis

The hot topic in the news in the last weeks has been the "sugar crisis". There is lack of sugar in the country and prices has doubled! And this despite Uganda being one of the most important sugar producers in Africa. And, I was wondering what's so important about that sugar?

What is all that fuzz about "sugar crisis" ?

That was until I realized that Reco, the company I work for, had to stop production because we had no sugar. All our products contains (a small amount of) sugar, and without it we can not produce anything. Orders are not being delivered, sales are going down, and we have a real crisis!

Fortunately last week, after being put on a waiting list for a few weeks, we were able to get sugar from one of the Ugandan sugar companies. Phu! Production could start again, and we are back in business!

Where things are not available all the time
But this gave me something to think about: I have almost never experienced that something is not available. In my home country, Norway, everything is available, - all the time! So, this is a new experience for me. It affects me in small scale in my daily life here in Uganda: if I see something in the shop that I like, I have to buy it there and then. Tomorrow it might not be there! One day there is cheese, another day there is no cheese. Thats life here. But, it is ok. It is good for me to learn to appreciate when the cheese is available ...

But, it really affects business here. And therefore also affects our project. The main raw materials needed for the products we are working with are fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are in season or out of season and they are depending on weather conditions. If the weather is not right, and the season is bad, there are no fruits and vegetables available until the next season.

We need mangoes NOW-NOW!
Like right now, we need mangoes for the development of the new products we are working on. But, there are no mangos in season until November, maybe December. Shame on you, mangoes! You are not not following the project time schedule!

Sarah Mundusu is a mango farmer, but she has no mango until November/December, only Guava. We need mangoes NOW to develop new products!

Peanut butter labels for the next 32 years
Other materials needed for our products are the packaging materials. Most packaging materials are not locally available in Uganda. They have to be ordered from China in big quantities, its expensive, delivery times are long and the transport cost to get them here are really high (even higher now, since the local currency it doing so badly). So, therefore it is "better to be safe than sorry". Let's make sure we have enough in stock, so we don't get a packaging material crisis.

Going through the stocks the other day shows that we have enough peanut butter labels for the next 32 years of production, if we continue our current production rate. And we want to redesign and launch the new labels this year. Means we have to destroy quite a lot of unused packaging material. Not good for environment. Not good for the company's economy. But, urgently necessary in order to "rescue" our product sales!

So, let the design of new packaging material begin! The design brief is ready. It is so exciting!


.... but the development of the new products has to wait for mango season...