Ground nuts aregrown across many parts of Uganda. However, save for a few people, most farmers sell their product raw, hence making very little profit.
And yet, the nuts can be processed into several high-value products which increase farmers’ earnings by between 50-70%. These include juice, butter, paste and even ordinary roasting. Interestingly, most of these do not need by space to start.
Groundnut juice
In simple mathematics, if a farmer grows groundnuts with an intention of selling them raw, he or she would earn an average of sh3,500 per kilogramme. However, where the groundnuts are turned into juice, he or she can get an average of sh8,000.
Requirements for making the juice
-Boiler (capacity depends on need)
-Pasteuriser (capacity depends on need)
-Buckets of 10 litres or 10kg capacity
-Grinder
-Filling machine to fill the bottles with juice
-Thermometer and all these cost at least sh18m at the high-end or around sh5m if you use juakali from Katwe.
The groundnut juice is a nutritious product containing sodium, calcium, iron and vitamin C. The juice is made through the process of hydrothermal extraction that is, using heat and water to extract minerals and nutrients. The nuts are put in a boiler and boiled, the way beans are boiled. And then after this, the water that was used in the boiling is filtered out to turn into the juice.
Use the red groundnuts but don’t crash them, they remain as they are in order to retain key nutrients. This is why the juice is rich in iron.
The remainder can be eaten. For example, sell them to some people who dry and roast them and these are rich in fats, protein and fibre. After processing, you need to select a ‘selling’ brand name for your juice. The better the brand, the more the customers.
