By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
ABOUT US$438,000 has been invested into a new groundnut shelling line and seed sorting equipment by the Community Market for Conservation (COMACO).
The new plant is expected to come on stream next month, which will help increase the shelling capacity, says COMACO Chipata Hub Manager, Smith Kapeya.
Mr Kapeya explained that the new plant would address the problem of shelling of nuts of all sizes and at the same time increase the capacity needed to run the peanut butter production.
“The new shelling line is going to address the problem of all sizes of nuts to be shelled, at the same time increase the capacity that we need for our production to run at full capacity in terms of the peanut butter production.
“So we have invested in the equipment. We spent about US$438,000 on this new shelling line. The line is quiet big it is modern technology and would be able to do seed sorting as well,” he said in an interview.
Mr Kapeya noted that they have some cooperatives that are into seed modification, stating that the new shelling line would very much help in sorting out the seeds.
“This is actually the machine we are excited about because it is going to address quiet a number of challenges. I am sure you have seen that our current sheller has got its own weaknesses where some of the nuts are broken.
“We spend quiet a lot of money in sorting the nuts by engaging more manpower and it also takes a lot of time. We have seen this has been a bottleneck for some time,” he said.
Mr Kapeya indicated that the equipment was procured from India, from a company known as Spectrum.
“We should be able to commission this plant by next month. We have assembled the machinery and are just doing the electrical installation. We should have a technician from India to come over and install the equipment,” he stated.
Mr Kapeya said the production capacity of peanut butter was about 120 tonnes per month but was under capacity because of the shelling and sorting side.
“We are not able to feed into the peanut butter processing line, that is why we have thought of increasing capacity on the shelling side and sorting so as to match the capacity of the peanut butter section,” he said.
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