about us
Grow. Process. Export. Repeat.
our belief pillars
Ambitious growth
We are aspirational in our growth targets. The more our trees yield, the more we process. The more we sell the more support we can offer to our local community through training, engagement programmes and increased livelihoods.
Reliant supply
We don’t just procure and process. We embrace an integrated farming model, utilising our own anchor farm lands (growing to 340 ha by 2024) and collaboration with 5,000 trained small holder famers in cooperatives linked to our Village Orchards. Our diverse mango range means we can continue to grow and process mangoes 5-6 months of every year to ensure an extended seasonal supply.
High quality
We maintain a culture of quality: for our farmland, for our fruit, for our processing and for our workers. We harness traceability to ensure product consistency and run a multi-certified and safe facility with state of the art equipment to ensure quality export grade products.
timeline
In just 10 years, we’ve come a long way.
Since 2011 Malawi Mangoes has transformed unused lake side land into premium, irrigated 320 ha of farms and trained 5,000 low income local community members to become high quality mango growing entrepreneurs. We’ve elevated university graduates and aspiring professionals into factory leaders in a 10,000 meter square certified processing facility. We’ve made a 5-month, 5 mango variety season a reality and created the first fruit export market from the Warm Heart of Africa. And we’ve contributed to the development of a village into a township.
2009: Initial feasibility studies are completed to understand the viability of a mango growing, processing and export business from Malawi, the “Warm Heart of Africa”.
2011: Our first community “outgrower” programme is established. In just five years it grew to over 5,000 smallholders within a 150 km radius around our processing facility and saw us graft 37,000 indigenous mango trees.
2013: Working with the Government of Malawi and village elders, we transformed underutilised grasslands that were giving minimal benefit to surrounding communities, and established our first farm in Matumba in the Salima District.
2013: Through certification with the Rain Forest Alliance we learnt how to better use our lands to ensure minimal impact on local flora and fauna. We set aside 30% of land for bird and animal corridors, protected water courses and created a plan for inter-cropping and crop rotation.
2013: Our factory is built located just a few kilometers away from the Salima township.
2014: Based on growing demand, we expand our farmland by following the sun into Dzuwa village (Chichewa for sunshine), increasing our growing base to 240ha of trees across 426ha of land.
2014: Our processing facility, becomes fully operational, passing audits and technical approval to supply global and regional clients.
2015: We receive certifications for our processing facility including BRCGS, HACCP, Halal and Kosher. Contact Us.
2016: We meet Westfalia Fruit Products, It’s the start of a very FRUITFUL (pun intended!) relationship which expands our industry and logistics networks, training and technical skills development and provided sales and marketing support.
2017: Cooperatives are established to further our support for community skills development and income generation
2018: 55ha of Kent and Keitt saplings are propagated and planted on our farm and we also acquire 1,688ha of lakeside farmland (450ha organically certified) for agricultural expansion.
2018: Community based Village orchards across the Salima District that have 44ha of drip irrigated mango trees, 11ha of nutritional or commercial crops and 11ha of sustainable forestry for energy generation are established thanks to funding from the EU’s Farm Income Diversification Programme.
2018: Malawi gains access to the Indian market and we start premium air freight counter seasonal supply into one of the largest mango consumers globally
2018: 3 x 1.5 Mt dryers are installed at our factory and we complete our first commercial drying season, successfully exporting a container of dried mango to the EU market.
2019: Our farmlands become Global-GAP gap certified.
2019: We install an additional 3 x 1.5 Mt dryers and 8 cold rooms into our processing facility, increasing our capacity to dry 20 Mt (mega tons) per day and hold 360Mt of mangoes under refrigeration.
2019: R&D trials for new mango varieties are started to focus on increased seasonal supply for our growing customer base.
2020: We install 2 x 3 Mt dryers to increase our drying capacity to 30 Mt / day and another 2 x 3 Mt dryers the following year to further increase our drying capacity to 42 Mt / day.
2021: We reach a new production milestone! We harvest and process over 3,000 metric tons of mangoes in one growing season.
2021: We receive Global GAP certification for our “outgrower” programme covering all smallholder farmers in our village orchard supply chain.
2021: We achieve SMETA II certification!
our team
People Power!
Our keen to learn and committed staff are what make processing in a developing country possible. Year round we employ 200 people in full time jobs. In addition to this we have an amazing team of seasonal workers picking and processing our fruit. In the early days this was an additional 400 people, but now, with increased yields, we employ 1,200 workers for 3–5 months of each year.
A large majority of the Malawi Mangoes team comes from the small villages surrounding our farm and processing facility. Most often their only other work options are in the informal sector.
Adding them into the formal economy is important. It opens up opportunities such as loan applications for land or house procurement, side business creation for added income and also ensures they can add to their pensions.
40% of our employed team are women. They shine across the worker spectrum from process supervisors and field educators to mango pickers and planters.
An empowered workforce, is a satisfied and retained one so we do our best to offer long term training and skills development programmes. We provide mentorship opportunities and are also working with technical colleges to instigate internship programmes. We’re doing our part to try and ensure a higher percentage of agriculture, production, quality, engineering and administration degree holders can access practical on the job training and experience.
malawi
Takulandilani, (Welcome) to “The Warm Heart of Africa”
Malawi is landlocked and shares its borders with Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. We have the fifth largest fresh water lake in the world by volume, and ninth largest by area and, with malawi mangoes strategic Salima location, we sit right on it!
We have an estimated population of 20 million, which is expected to double by 2038. Malawi is called the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’ because of the friendliness of its people. From a tradition of extended family shared home living, a spirit of cooperation prevails here so our integrated farming system is a natural fit culturally.
Malawi is considered one of the poorest countries in the world but we are making strides with significant reforms to sustain economic growth. Currently our economy is dependent on agriculture, which employs nearly 80% of the population – often informally. In January 2021, the government launched the Malawi Vision 2063 that aims at transforming Malawi into a wealthy and self-reliant industrialised upper middle-income country.
Malawi is a peaceful country and has had stable governments since independence in 1964. One-party rule ended in 1993 and since then multi-party presidential and parliamentary elections have been held every five years.
