What started as a job to export from the United States to Ghana, has now turned the complete opposite way. Alex Kravecas used to work at the American embassy in Ghana, but noticed the potential of exporting produce from Ghana to other countries. Now, three years later MakolaHub is about to launch its first branded mango.
Alex Kravecas is the CEO for MakolaHub Fresh, a company that exports a variety of fruits from Ghana. The company didn’t start out that way though, Kravecas explains: “I came in touch with the Ghana produce when I was working for the US embassy in Ghana, I worked for the trade department. After a while I noticed there might be more potential in exporting produce instead of importing anything from the United States. About three years ago we launched MakolaHub.com, a platform that would connect growers with buyers. But it was during Fruit Logistica 2018, we got in touch with a significant Polish buyer, to whom we exported some of the mangoes last season.”
Launching a platform doesn’t simply get the ball rolling though, as Kravecas would soon find out. “Just connecting farmers with buyers doesn’t cut it because it’s critical to build a relationship with your buyers and understand their specific requirements. We learned the only way to keep their trust and deliver the quality they require was to be totally control the process from harvest to shipping. There are several challenges one has to deal with when cultivating and exporting mangoes from Ghana. For one, most farmers did not have a GlobalGAP certificate when we started this thing. We’re working on them now, as a group we’re certifying the SunGrowers Collective in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana, that cultivates about a thousand acres and produces 6000 tons of mangoes in a year. Now about half of this produce is not suited for export, but it’s a base we can work from.”
To find more buyers for the growers from Ghana, Kravecas attended Fruit Logistica two years ago and has attended all Fruit Logistica and Fruit Attraction fairs ever since. “To my surprise a lot of people had no idea Ghana produced mangoes at all. It led to interest from a lot of big names. To ensure we can deliver mangoes of the quality they’ve come to expect we have brought in several experts who are overseeing the cultivation. Some farmers need to be educated or encouraged on how to properly take care of the trees on their farm. Growers will sometimes not pay attention to diseases in time, causing them to spread to other farms. Giving them the expertise and tools to deal with these issues will go a long way. If the growers don’t know their fruits will be exported, they won’t take as much care of their farms, because their normal buyers, dried fruit and juice processors, don’t care about external skin quality or the aesthetic appeal of the mango. Most farmers just need to be assured that there is an export market for their fruits so they are encouraged to manage their farms in such a way that they get the quality required by European supermarkets. Farmers are paid more for fresh export-quality fruits.” Kravecas says.
In Ghana, they have two different seasons in which mangoes can be grown, primarily of the Keitt variety. The main season runs from early May to mid-June and it has more than double the production of the second season. That season runs from December to January and comes with quite a few risks. “Last season we endured terrible weather during the December season. Due to massive rains we couldn’t export anything, which was a real shame as there was certainly some interest for the mangoes,” Kravecas explains: “We’ll need to make sure we improve before the main season starts again. This means educating the growers on how to maintain their farms constantly, and ensure that we have the biggest yield in the main season that we could possibly have. It will take some effort, but thanks to our Sungrowers Collective, we should be able to take significant steps.”
In terms of infrastructure, Kravecas feels the transportation possibilities are not as bad as one might think. “We have a public full-automated packhouse that we deliver the mangoes to. Some of our plantations are literally a minute drive away from the packhouse, but other fields might be a 6 to 8 hour drive. Now that is a worst case scenario, and this is why we’re hiring a logistics company to have trucks driving from the fields to the packhouse continuously. Once this part of the process is stable, we will to be able to export 15 containers every week.” Kravecas concludes.
