Community Factory and Packaging Centre

A co sharing factory for food processors who can't afford to open their own factories but want to have products.

Good Quality food products and product certifications are a big problem in Africa. I n Tanzania for example, in order for a person to sell its own branded peanut butter, he/she has to have a factory that has a registration of premise and this on its own has resulted in the failure of most agricultural startups in Tanzania. Many of the products that are actually sold to the market are not registered and this endangers the health of the final consumers. The biggest reason is the tedious process that has to be followed to get certifications of the products and thus get access to distribute one’s products. The youth especially and women are victims of this with many supportive programs dedicated to them but not a way forward to help them actually take their products to market.Agriculture being the main economic activity in Africa, it doesn’t help the Africans because of lack of proper ways to add value to the produces thus causing a lot of food waste and poverty since these products can not be turned to quality products to be consumed and exported outside the continent.

 The solution then is to have community Factories and packaging centers, these are centers that are certified by TFDA(Tanzania Food and Drug Association), thus anyone who produces in the factories will automatically get a certification that will allow them to also have TBS (Tanzania bureau of standards certificate). These factories will have basic machines for products that are most popular such as peanut butter, flour and dried fruits and also seasonally add machines that are needed after intensive research is done of that need. These factories solution will first deal with food products, and then textiles and cosmetics will be introduced. A person could then easily manufacture its product, and get certification and also get access to professionals of product design, tax, and finance, incase they need to get more information and assistance. The owners of these products will also get assistance to the import and Export of raw materials and goods. To ensure that we are cost efficient, we are focused on using discarded shipping containers and stacking them together and renovating them to make these centers.

These centers will revolutionize the entrepreneurship activity in Africa by ensuring that many young people and women especially can start their own businesses and have quality products that can be exported to different parts of the world. These centers can eliminate the overhead costs of starting food brands and thus increase the quality of life in Africa and the world in parts like Asia and South America. This will eliminate the potential of having jobs in factories, with factories being a big impossibility for most entrepreneurs but will improve the lives of young people and then provide direct jobs to those people they will hire.

This is a new process of solving the challenge . Before , for a person to have a certified  food product they needed to first have a registered premise, a food scientist and many other requirements . Now , having a product becomes easy since the community factories become the avenue for these entrepreneurs  to establish their products.

Technology is very essential in these centres, in order for these factories to be efficient ,they will need to have cutting edge equipments that have the capacity to produce alot of product.Packaging machines are also essential for the project

-To ensure certifications to agripreneurs 

-To provide assistance in marketing , tax and import and export 

-To provide guidance in product design of these products

The vision is to provide assistance to African Entrepreneurs in other sectors such as textiles and cosmetics so that it can be easy for them to go to market.

The solution will be deployed through partnerships with key stakeholders such as Tanzania Youth Chamber of Commerce, Tanzania women Chamber of commerce,Tanzania Chamber of Commerce , Industry an Agriculture  who have members who are the target market of the project and will be easy to reach  these members . Other partnerships with government entities such as TFDA , TBS , Small industries development organisation (SIDO) and GS1 which provides barcodes to products.

Its still an idea.

I expect to serve around 1000 people , i will be serving them