How to Start Cassava – “Garri” Processing Company

Cassava is one of the most consumed and most popular agricultural products in the world especially in the north America, Europe, Africa and other parts of the world, actually in this article, I will be narrowing down my focus on Africa and Nigeria in Particular.  

Cassava is a kind of an all seasoned food and cash crop, and one of the characteristics of cassava is that it can be cultivated all throughout the year, really it does well in the rainy season but it grows fine during the dry season as well, so most farmers tend to increase their planting during the rainy season and reduce their planting in the dry season, so as to get the best return from their investment annually on Cassava.

The beauty of this great crop is that it can be converted into so many other food crops and also non-consumable materials and tools that are so useful in our world today.

One f the most common use of cassava at the local and international market level in Nigeria is production of “Garri”, Garri is a kind of local cassava processed form which can be used in various forms to make home foods and various delicacy in Nigeria, some of the food forms of garri is Eba, Garri can also be taking raw with water and sugar, recently Nigeria Star artists and Agriculture Ambassador – “Dbanj” Launched his processed garri which you can get the details here.

 Garri as a relatively high market demand in Nigeria and doubtlessly; it has never undergo any forms of scarcity whatsoever since inception, this is because it is locally produced and cassava is cultivated in various parts of the country, the cost of production is also low making it possible and easy to process more raw cassava into Garri.
       

Garri as a good market potential and it is a worthy investment in the Agricultural industry of Nigeria today, the modern farmers are now adopting new measures which enable them to export garri to foreign countries and make it available for Nigeria who loves to have their local indigenous food readily available in markets at USA, Malaysia, Russia, UK,EUROPE and the rest part of the world.

How to Start your own Cassava processing Company and Produce Garri in Nigeria

There are procedures you must follow while getting started with this business in Nigeria so as to make your income and also add value to the agriculture market and food production level in Nigeria.

 If you have the resources, you can get a land and cultivate cassava of your own but if this is making the procedure a little stressful and prolong, you can reach to ready farmers in your area and buy harvested cassava from them.

 Cassava is produced all year round in Nigeria so you can be rest assured of getting cassava anywhere and anytime you want.

Get Good Cassava Tubers

This is very important don’t buy anyhow cassava even though I can proud Nigeria to be one of the country that produces the Highest and durable cassava in the world, Shonga Farms in Kwara state still produces the largest cassava in Nigeria today,  you can get good quality cassava there or from local farmers around you and get started with your business.

Employ Experts and Experience Workers

If you want to produce huge garri in tonnes or thousands of Bags you can consider the commercial system which is costly for medium and small business owners but if you are just getting started this guide will help you, there are many woman and men that have been in the garri processing business for many years if not decades you can employ them, however I suggest you go and get the knowledge from farmers who are into this already even before you employ the experts so that you can understand how to properly handle, supervise and manage your new business. 

 It is not a difficult to start business but it requires gradual procedures and steps which must not be overlooked.      

How to Manually Process Cassava into Garri

After you might have gotten your Cassava Tubers, peel them carefully, make sure all the brown covering are removed and  it is clean and neat. 
     

Cut them into smaller pieces Move them into the Grinding Machine and grind them thoroughly and make them neat and clean, now it is time to pill it up in a sack bag and put it under pressure in the Jack, this is very important so as to get rid of the Starch and make the garri to be well fermented and palatable. 

 Most people tend to leave it under the Jack for 5days some others consider 3days but the longer the days the better the Garri will look, however it must not be too long before you take it away. 

On the 5th day, the water most has been out of the cassava and now it’s just mere starch component.

 The next step is to sieve it, the sieving process helps to get rid and separate the filtrate from the residue and this is very needful so as to get pure and clean garri flour.

After the Sieving process, the next thing is frying the filtrate into Garri, the residue are used in producing other kind of food stuffs and can be feed to animals like ruminant and livestock.

Some of the machines used in the modern days of cassava processing into garri are below;

 

The filtrate is fried in round frying pans under good heat source especially dry woods produce good quality of heat to serve this purpose, the drying/frying process does not take too long but it continues until the filtrate is well fried into Garri which is edible and palatable, by the time it is getting ready, the sweet smell will already fill the atmosphere.
  

The process of producing Garri is a daily activity in Nigeria and 95% of Nigeria Homes consume Garri making it very lucrative food stuffs both locally and internationally. 

If you have #10,000 to #50,000 you can get started with this new business and move it to the next level as you desire this year, I hope you are able to pick some new business idea in Agriculture Industry and Cassava in particular? 

In my subsequent updates, I will share much other kind of food stuffs and livestock feeds that are gotten from Cassava.

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