At first look, Mavuno Harvest’s Chewy Fruit Bites look much like quite a lot of different dried fruit merchandise available on the market. However take a more in-depth look, and also you’ll spot just a few issues that set these wholesome desk snacks aside.
First, their form: As a substitute of strips or chunks, Mavuno’s dried fruit is available in snack-sized balls that mix two totally different fruits (like pineapple, ardour fruit, coconut, and mango) right into a single chew. Then, there’s the ingredient listing. The bites are created from natural fruit—that’s it.
Maintain studying the package deal, and also you’ll spot a fair larger distinction: Mavuno’s snacks use natural fruit grown and dried in Africa. Founder Phil Hughes created the corporate particularly to convey extra revenue and alternative to African farmers. Within the course of, he has helped save 1000’s of kilos of natural fruit from turning into meals waste.
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Phil’s Story: Kenya & The Peace Corps
When Phil joined the Peace Corps in 2003, he was a mechanical engineer recent out of faculty.
“I had some wanderlust, and I additionally had this obscure notion of wanting to assist individuals,” Phil stated. “However I used to be 21, so I didn’t even actually know what that meant.”
That call modified the course of his profession. He landed in Kenya and moved to the village of Miti Mingi to work as a public well being volunteer. On the request of his neighbors, he helped construct a voluntary counseling and testing heart for HIV and AIDS training. However even because the village’s healthcare improved, Phil observed one other downside—a scarcity of financial alternative.
Mavuno Harvest founder Phil Hughes (left) with Zongo Adama, a drying facility managing director
The Alternative Downside
“My largest takeaway from the Peace Corps was the overwhelming poverty the place I lived. In my village, there have been zero job alternatives. It was very rural. The closest metropolis was about two hours away, and it’s not like town had a ton of alternatives both,” Phil stated.
Natural fruit farming was the go-to job in Miti Mingi. However due to unpredictable harvest occasions, farmers couldn’t simply schedule a truck to convey their produce to town. They often bought their pineapples, mangoes, and papayas at roadside stands as a substitute.
This wasn’t a really efficient technique. Just a few vehicles handed by the distant village, and ultimately, most farmers bought solely about one-third of their harvest. With out dependable chilly storage, they needed to depart the remainder of the fruit—and the exhausting work and monetary safety it represented—to rot.
The issue caught in Phil’s thoughts. He saved fascinated with it when he returned to the US to earn a Grasp of Enterprise Administration in Worldwide Enterprise, and when he took a job in Rwanda serving to espresso farmers enhance their crop high quality and discover worldwide patrons. Then, in 2011, the lightbulb went off. What if he may discover a manner to assist household farmers in Africa enhance their revenue by drying and exporting their recent fruit?
“All of my expertise—the Peace Corps, getting my MBA, working in Rwanda—led me to the concept of Mavuno Harvest,” he stated.
How Mavuno’s Wholesome Desk Snacks Assist Farmers
Phil began connecting with fruit drying services in Africa and on the lookout for a marketplace for their fruit in America, the place he lived on the time. He visited eight totally different African international locations on his hunt for the suitable suppliers.
“I didn’t need to be seen as ‘the international savior’ that is available in and fixes every part for everyone—I needed to assist them develop infrastructure themselves,” Phil stated. “… I offered enterprise, money circulation, and income for these companies by offering a US market. I primarily grew to become a buyer and tried to inform their story.”
Phil constructed a community of fruit-drying services in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Cote d’Ivoire. Quickly, his drying companions started shopping for extra of the recent natural fruit that native farmers couldn’t promote, drying it, and exporting it to the US for Mavuno Harvest.
“The title Mavuno means ‘the primary fruit of the season’ in Swahili,” Phil advised The FruitGuys. “…It’s a nod to the nationwide language of Kenya, the place I accomplished my Peace Corps service.”
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A Mavuno Success Story: Papaya Farmer Muwonge Herbert
Mavuno’s enterprise mannequin labored. It introduced a brand new supply of revenue to African farmers, and a few of them, like papaya farmer Muwonge Herbert of Uganda, reinvested of their crops.
Papaya farmer Muwonge Herbert (left) with Mavuno Harvest founder Phil Hughes
“He had papayas on his farm and we began shopping for these papayas,” Phil advised The FruitGuys. “Lower than a 12 months later, with the revenue he made, he was in a position to hire one other plot of land. He planted extra papayas and bought them to us the 12 months after that. It was a comparatively fast turnaround, and he doubled his output as a result of he had discovered a strong market.”
In 2024 alone, Mavuno bought fruit from ninety-seven small household farms in West Africa for its dried fruit snacks and supported 297 manufacturing facility jobs, serving to households afford requirements like healthcare, college uniforms, and extra.
Bonus Profit: Saving Meals Waste
Mavuno Harvest does greater than assist farmers—it additionally helps the planet. Its companions concentrate on shopping for fruit that farmers can’t promote regionally, saving it from going to waste. In 2024, that financial savings amounted to 347 metric tons of dried fruit.
“Beginning out, I don’t suppose I even knew meals waste was a factor!” Phil stated, laughing. “I needed individuals to be paid extra and needed farmers to make a dwelling doing one thing they have been good at. … However it labored out that we have been in a position to assist work on fixing one other difficulty, as effectively.”
All of Mavuno’s merchandise scale back waste, however its Chewy Fruit Bites are notably eco-friendly. Staff at one of many factories Mavuno sources from created the product by upcycling “ugly” bits of dried fruit from Mavuno’s different snacks. They floor them in a paste, blended them with different fruit, and rolled them into balls, inventing a brand new deal with. It’s an eco-friendly various to setting the leftovers apart for fertilizer or animal feed.
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Wholesome Desk Snacks that Empower With Each Chunk
At this time, Phil runs Mavuno Harvest from the US. He often visits Africa annually, and trusts that his suppliers will present high-quality dried fruit with out his oversight.
“Within the Peace Corps, I realized in regards to the idea of sustainable growth. In case you truly need to create sustainable growth, the individuals you’re making an attempt to assist must do it. If I went over to Africa, constructed a drying facility, ran the entire thing, and obtained hit by a bus tomorrow, [the farmers and factory workers we support] can be screwed. What would they’ve? Jobs that have been now gone. But when I can assist develop them as suppliers in order that they will develop to a brand new stage and promote to different corporations, then they’re growing a enterprise versus me doing every part for them,” Phil stated.
The FruitGuys is proud to rejoice Mavuno Harvest as our January 2025 Snack of the Month. You could find its wholesome desk snacks in all of our Considerate Snack Packing containers all through January together with snacks from different mission-minded manufacturers. You too can buy them by the case to kick off a wholesome new 12 months in your workplace! We stocked up on the Mango + Coconut and Pineapple + Ardour Fruit flavors.
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