A South African Company, First National Choice -Mozambique (FNC) plans to invest about six million US dollars in building a pineapple processing plant in Muxungué, in Chibabava district, in the central province of Sofala. According to the Beira newspaper “Diario de Mocambique”', these plans were revealed by the company’s general manager, Ase Ferrao, who attended the first pineapple festival held on Saturday, in Muxungué. Initially, the plant will have the capacity to process 40 tons of pineapples per day, an amount which will result in about 17,000 liters of juice. This final product will be exported to Germany, from where it will go to other European markets. In the interval before its own factory is built, FNC plans to buy local pineapples to be processed in a small existing factory at Morrumbene in the neighboring province of Inhambane. Currently, the Morrumbene plant processes fruit pulp ice that is exported to Denmark, and also produces fruit jam for the national market. Chibabava district has 3,500 farmers engaged in pineapple cultivation in an area of about 4,150 hectares. However, often more than half of the total production of pineapple in Muxungué is lost due to lack of processing and of a market for the surplus fruit. In July last year, the Director for Economic Services in Chibabava district, Paz Martinho, said Muxungué produced a total of 45,000 tons of pineapples in the 2008/2009 agricultural campaign, but most went unsold. “'We only sold about 45 percent of our pineapples last year due to lack of buyers, and the rest got spoiled”, said Martinho.
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