50km southeast of Nairobi is the production site of the newly built fruit drying facility. The facility in Kenya was built in close cooperation with HPW and launched its production in January 2021. With a yearly production capacity of 700 tons, HPW is committed to strengthening Kenya as a tasty and highly efficient origin of Premium dried fruit. The site is operated by our partner Vert Ltd., who already manages a state-of-the art mango pulping plant and has many years of experience as an exporter of fresh vegetable specialities.

The expansion of HPW to East Africa is driven by our goal to supply our customers with Premium dried mangos all year round. In order to do this, we have introduced a novelty in our business set up. The production plant was designed and planned by HPW. The facility itself is run by our strong Kenyan partner Vert Ltd under close supervision and guidance from HPW. The quality and production team of HPW fresh&dry Ghana has played a crucial role in training the 250 Kenyan workers to attain the highest quality and food safety standards. On-the-job-training and regular know-how exchange related to production and quality management with our West African factories have allowed a successful start of operations.

Within a few months, this new production facility has successfully completed its BRC certification and has thereby laid the groundwork for future success. But high food safety and quality standards are not the only reasons to be proud of this expansion to East Africa. We strengthen with this additional African factory our core principle to create value at source and process tropical fruit where it grows.

The journey in Kenya has just begun. And with it the discovery of a lot of new possibilities. The various geographical conditions in the country, the different plateaus and climate zones are home to numerous different tropical fruits and vegetables. While on one hand strengthening the recently launched mango production with a yearly output of 400 tons, the HPW team is already examining new opportunities of adding value to this large variety of undiscovered foods and thereby creating the basis for a year-round production facility.