Zimbabwean entreprenuer gives wasted bananas new appeal
Small-scale banana farmers in Zimbabwe throw out up to a third of their banana harvests because they can’t be sold. This week’s Doing Your Bit! features one young entrepreneur who is trying to give these bananas new appeal.
Bananas are one of the main crops grown in Zimbabwe, but growing the fruit can be tricky. Bananas don’t store well and suffer in transportation, so around a third of banana harvests are ultimately thrown out.
Bright Nezomba, a young entrepreneur, has found a solution for this banana waste. His banana processing company, Nezox Brands, takes unsellable bananas from 40 small-scale farms and turns them into flour, fruit snacks and dried banana skins. The process simultaneously preserves the environment and banana crop yields in a region affected by climate change.
“I realized that we are losing a lot on bananas, so we started finding ways to mitigate those losses,” Nezomba said. “That’s when the idea of processing bananas came.”
