Burkina Faso is a poor, landlocked country that depends on adequate rainfall. Irregular patterns of rainfall, poor soil, and the lack of adequate communications and other infrastructure contribute to the economy’s vulnerability to external shocks. About 80{46ec2a3493715af7728c32a403f8e2e213c1486a2b6674762cf12f27ee9af20a} of the population is engaged in subsistence farming and cotton is the main cash crop. The country has few natural resources and a weak industrial base.

Despite these difficulties, some companies are anyway working to find better ways to exploit the territory’s resources.

One of these companies is called COAB (Compagnie Ouest Africaine de Boisson), based in Bobo Dioulasso, which specializes in tropical fruit processing, especially in the production of natural and concentrated mango puree and in the production and bottling of fruit juices and water.

In 2017, they decided to work with us to create a tropical fruit processing plant to produce fruit juices, making the most of the seasonality of mango. Today, COAB’s plant is composed of 5 different tropical fruit processing lines that work together with different purposes:

First line: production of natural and concentrated mango puree;

Second line: preparation of fruit juice and filling in 6,000 l/h gable top cartons;

Third line: preparation of fruit juices filled in 0.33 ml pouches;

Fourth line: production of carbonated drinks based on fruit puree;

Fifth line: PET filling line for the following formats: 0.25ml – 0.33ml – 0.50ml – 1.5l.

The district of Bobo Dioulasso is an area where tropical fruits are growing extensively. Thanks to this project, during the mango season (May to September) the semi-finished product is sterilized and stored in 200 kg aseptic bags. This tropical fruit processing method enables COAB to use the puree to produce mango-based juices and nectars. They can also produce other product all year round, i.e. still and sparkling water filled in PET bottles.

CFT Group capability to offer all the required tropical fruit processing lines as the one and only supplier was the real advantage over the competitors.

In addition to tropical fruit processing and bottling machines, we also supplied all utilities and auxiliary services required for the operation of the plant. This case exemplifies a standard practice for us, especially in the African market where potential customers need a technological partner capable of developing production factories starting from “green fields”.

The piece of innovation which contributed to distinguish our company from competitors was certainly the cold extraction process applied to mango. The technological innovation we proposed to COAB helped us to gain their trust and convince them that such technology can produce a high-quality product which no other company can offer in West Africa at present.

Thanks to this first success, we are thinking about the future: in addition to tropical fruit, COAB would like to process other products which grow quite extensively in Burkina Faso, i.e. hibiscus, ginger and tamarind. Based on this, the supplied evaporator will also be able to produce clear juices – 65 bx – so as to make the most of the seasonal nature of these fruits.

This work was awarded to CFT Group also thanks to some recent projects we implemented in West Africa. A similar project was finalized for Cediam company in Mali. A tropical fruit processing plant was built there in 2013 to produce natural and concentrated mango and papaya puree. Also in this case, we supplied a turn-key plant starting from a “green field”: the company now exports over 200,000 tons of 28bx puree a year to the Port of Rotterdam.