Switching to the New Oil as Value Addition June 2022 - Avocado oil
Photo:
The Managing Director for Avo Fresh and the County Legal Representative Sign off the MoU and Lease Agreement to Kick Start the Avocado Oil Processing Plant Project
is a rich, flavorful, edible oil from the pulp of avocadoes and is a health source of carbohydrates and good fats. The oil also has antioxidants and is highly moisturising and preferable in beauty and skin care products. The global avocado oil market is primarily being driven by the increasing product demand for it within the food and beauty industry. It has become increasingly popular in the recent past due to the demand growth for it within the health-conscious market in Europe and North America. In its support to Kisii Municipality, the UK Government through the Sustainable Urban Economic Development Programme (SUED) helped the municipality to develop its Urban Economic Plan (UEP). The plan built on the municipality’s key economic sectors that identified agriculture as its primary economic driver. In Kisii, agriculture employs over 70% of the workforce directly or indirectly. One of the agricultural products that has been a major contributor to the agricultural earnings of the municipality has been avocado. Avocado is well suited to Kisii and is grown widely on small scale due to small land sizes as a result of population pressure. As such, majority of the avocado farmers are smallholder farmers who collectively have over 300 hectares (30,000 trees) of Hass avocados in fruition stage. Avocado is one of the primary value chain projects that the Kisii Government and SUED prioritised for investment due to its huge potential to drive socio-economic development. The programme supported the municipality to carry out investment attraction for the avocado oil processing project. This entailed project
screening creating a criterion that looked at all the information needed to pitch the project to investors and better understand the county and municipal context and the viability of getting enough avocadoes to sustain a processing plant in Kisii. Additionally, the programme conducted a pre-feasibility study on the project that outlined the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats that the project had. By conducting the prefeasibility study, the programme was able to carry out market sounding to various investors to determine their interest in the project. As a result of the detailed investor outreach process, SUED was able to matchmake the avocado oil processing project with a local investor Avo Fresh Limited who together with the programme’s support would set up a 70-tonne avocado oil processing facility. The facility will utilise locally sourced avocado fruits to produce avocado oil mainly for the export market. The investor will invest about £2.6 million to set up the operation in Kisii. The funds will be used to renovate the Agricultural Training Center (ATC) go down in Kisii, purchase equipment (including trucks) set up collection centers, mobilise farmers and create awareness on the preferred avocado type as well as construct a go down. On 21st of June, the County and Avo Fresh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and a lease agreement that would kick-start the avocado oil processing project in Kisii. With SUED’s support, Avo Fresh received 5 10-tonne trucks that would be used in the transportation of the avocado oil from the collection centers to the facility. “I never knew the value of avocado trees until I started travelling internationally. We have a resource in every homestead that can be used to better our economic advancement. Today’s MoU and lease agreement signing starts the process of impacting Kisii farmers. “H.E. James Ongwae- Kisii County Governor. The launch event was graced by the Deputy British High Commissioner, Julius Scott.