The project
Twelve hectares on the Mutoko tomato belt. One processing facility. One captive solar grid. One thousand five hundred smallholder suppliers — organised, contracted and paid digitally.
At a glance
Freehold parcel in Mutoko District, zoned for agro-industrial use and adjoining the primary tomato-growing corridor.
HACCP-compliant line processing field tomatoes into aseptic paste, sauces and purées at Brix 28–30.
Ground-mounted array with lithium battery storage sized for twenty-four-hour autonomy at plant load.
Smallholder cooperatives under structured offtake, with input finance and extension agronomy built in.
Component one
A modular, HACCP-compliant line designed around Italian pulping, evaporation and aseptic-fill technology — proven in similar-scale plants across North Africa and the Levant.
Gravity-fed tip bay, optical sort, recirculating wash — water recovery above eighty per cent.
Hot-break pulper preserves colour and Bostwick viscosity; refiner to sixty-mesh as standard.
Concentrating to Brix 28–30 at low temperature; specific steam consumption 0.55 kg/kg water evaporated.
220 kg bag-in-drum aseptic packaging — twelve-month ambient shelf life, export-ready.
In-line Brix, pH, NTSS, mould count; third-party SGS verification on every shipment.
Component two
A 500 kW ground-mounted PV array with 1.2 MWh lithium battery storage. Sized to supply ninety per cent of plant load year-round, with grid fallback on the ZETDC distribution network.
Tier-1 bifacial modules on fixed-tilt racks, oriented for peak Mutoko irradiance.
LiFePO₄ chemistry, ten-year performance warranty, deep-cycle to eighty per cent DoD.
Displacing diesel-generation and fossil-heavy grid power over a twenty-year asset life.
Component three
Fifteen hundred smallholders — sixty per cent women — supply the plant under structured forward contracts. Input finance, extension services and mobile payments are bundled into every farmer relationship.
Execution roadmap
Term sheets advanced with Norfund, BII, FMO and SEFA. Due diligence commencement.
Senior, concessional and equity tranches signed; project company capitalised; ESAP published.
Groundbreaking, civils, solar foundations; first outgrower cohort recruited.
Processing line installed and commissioned; solar array energised.
Ramp to twenty-five per cent utilisation; initial offtake contracts honoured.
Full ramp to twenty tonnes/day; DSCR stabilisation; 2X Challenge reporting commences.
Location
Mutoko District produces more than forty per cent of Zimbabwe's commercial field tomatoes — a century of agronomic know-how concentrated in one corridor.
143 km from Harare on a paved trunk road. Onward access to Beira (Mozambique) and Beitbridge (South Africa) export gateways.
Altitude 1,200 m, dry subtropical climate with 2,800 sunshine hours per year — prime for both tomato cultivation and solar generation.