Foods Company Managing Director hopes for the better

Fatuma Namutosi is the founder and Managing Director of Byeffe Foods Company Limited, a food processing company involved in agricultural value addition on pumpkins, corn, soya, rice, and millet. The company is located in eastern Uganda and has been in operation since 2015. Byeffe was established to serve as a living example for youth to realize the underlying opportunities in the agriculture sector; Fatuma explains. The company also creates jobs through on- and off-farm activities for thousands of youths who have yet to unlock the potential of agriculture and still suffer from unemployment; she continues. In addition to supporting youth in product and market identification, Byeffe Foods Company also shares entrepreneurship skills that enable youth to do cost-benefit analyses. Despite the Company young age, hard work has earned a grant already provided by Youth Leadership for Agriculture Activity (YLA) “YLA has helped us to create platforms that lift our products” Managing Director recounts joyfully. Thanks to YLA technical and financial support, Byeffe Foods Company is reaching now a production capacity of over 768 tons of fresh pumpkins per year. This support has created an enabling environment for networking that has led to an increase in sales of products. Row products are procured from over 5,000 youths within Mbale District, with which, the Company is able to produce over 10,000 metric tons of finished products annually. YLA grant, helped to acquire a solar tunnel dryer for fresh food, which will in the near future allow the Company to train youth in post-harvest handling and value addition; Managing Director says. “Before, our low-technology dryer would produce 5 kilograms of dried pumpkins every 48 hours. Now, the company will be able to produce 50 kilograms” She concludes. Story Credit: Jossy Muhangi, National Content Developer, Uganda