ZEAN Ltd

ZEAN is a maize and banana processing business that was founded to transform post-harvest loss from a problem to an opportunity. Buying from local cooperatives and farmers, the maize crop is processed into flour, which is affordable and sought after by the local community, and bananas become fried chips which are popular on the urban market. By prolonging the shelf-life of each of the crops, post-harvest waste and financial loss is reduced.

Located in the northern province, on ‘Agri-innovation row’, the same road as SMEs Golden Insect and one of the SOUK farms, ZEAN is currently consolidating two separate sites to improve the efficiency of their banana and maize processing. The banana site houses a large, purpose-built warehouse with clearly marked spaces for the collection of crops, weighing and cleaning, technological processing, and packaging.  

By processing foods to increase the shelf life, ZEAN can use a different business model for paying farmers: using weight, rather than sight, the common practice in Rwanda. This ensures that farmers are getting a consistent price for their bananas and maize, which allows them to save, invest, and build their farming businesses, creating greater stability.

As a result of this consistency, ZEAN is able to work with 6 cooperatives, and over 1560 individual farmers, to produce 40 metric tons of banana chips, and 108 metric tons of maize flour.

As effective businessmen, they are also seeking new ways to reduce waste and turn a profit. They hope that engagement with CIRF Technical Assistance Providers will enable them to generate new sources of income. They see untapped potential in the use of banana peels, currently a waste product, and hope that the oil used to make banana chips could be transformed into fuel.

ZEAN employs 26 permanent staff and 76 casual laborers.