BizTech: How Africa's popular pineapple juice is made for local consumption, export

In August 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo cut sod for the construction of Ekumfi Fruits and Juices Limited.

This project falls under the 1 District 1 Factory (1D1F) initiative to help bolster government's industrialization agenda.

A tour of the factory by GhanaWeb's Ernestina Serwaa Asante observed how the fruit juices were made.

In an interaction with the Director of Operations of the company, Frederick Kobbyna Acquaah, he said the factory generated 10 tonnes of juices per hour.

He noted that about 75 people have been employed to work in the factory with several others working on the farmlands.

These workers, he said, have been trained in various fields, including engineering to expand the production base of the factory.

In the factory, the pineapples, brought from the about 3,000 acres of farmland were washed in a machine and automatically went into a crusher for the juice to be extracted.

After that, the extracted juice moves into a machine called the homogenizer. This is a mechanical process that shakes the juice such that they stay for long months and there's still no separation.

It then moves to the preheat stage, pasteurizer, UHT, chiller system, filling, attachment of straws and finally to the packaging of the juices into boxes.

Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb's Ernestina Serwaa Asante on BizTech show, the Director of Operations of the company, Frederick Kobbyna Acquaah, said about US$20 million has been pumped into the business.

“We have directors' contribution and other interests plus a loan of 10 million dollars. In total, we are talking about close to 20 million dollars but the value as we speak is way up,” he stated.

He said the company will double its production capacity to meet the demand on both the local and international markets.

He also highlighted that Eku juice will soon penetrate the international market, citing US, UK, and Dubai as their next target market.

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