Kenya, Africa TMT training market-driven value addition at Kenya School of Agriculture

19 September 2023

Food product development involves many elements: nutritional value, taste, convenience, packaging, shelf life…

But with so many people as a potential customer, who all have their own preferences, a value-added food product can be difficult to develop. Many food products are still being developed with the needs of the producer in mind, whereas the consumer needs are not always being taken into account. Often this results in products not succeeding on the market because of low or no consumer demand. How to change this? By taking the consumer in mind throughout the full product development cycle, and by starting with market research!

This week’s training therefore was all about market and consumer driven product development. The value addition hall of Kenya School of Agriculture in Nyeri was used for the practicals about product development with fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, as part of the NUFFIC project

Teachers of KSA involved in value addition were trained to facilitate value addition trajectories to students and community members. The first day started with market and consumer research to define market opportunities, consumer insights and possible innovations and trends, in order to find out exactly what product to create, based on market-demand. After that, the participants formulated a value proposition using the consumer insights.

The next two days were spent in the value addition processing hall, to experiment with different product formulations and varieties, to find the best possible outcome. The participants used their creativity and tested different versions of:

Fresh, natural mango and passion juice
Finger licking tomato sauce for fast food lovers
Tingy, fresh natural yoghurt for the whole family
Potato chips with exciting new infused flavours

Training impression

During the development process, the groups worked continuously to improve their products to prepare for the last day… On that day, the product concepts were proudly presented during a market exhibition! The group and KSA students and staff were invited to come and taste the products in real life and provide feedback for further improvement! See the results below: