The Fruits and Vegetables Technology Department is one of the model areas under the Directorate of Production Systems at UIRI. The Department was set up to promote industrialization through value addition to fruits and vegetables, improvement of indigenous fruits & vegetables technologies, skills development, business incubation, implementation of government value addition projects, and provision of SMEs outreach services among others.

The Department works in collaboration with the laboratories at the Institute to ensure production of safe and quality products that are fit for human consumption and meet consumer expectations.

The Fruits and Vegetables Technology Department offers services to: students; prospective entrepreneurs; business start-ups; existing food businesses; researchers; government entities; both public and private organizations/associations; and NGOs among others.  The Department understands that empowering the public especially prospective entrepreneurs with essential knowledge and vital information; practical skills and exposure to modern technology is not only crucial for promoting industrialization but also important for the economic transformation of the country.

Services offered by the Fruits & Vegetables Section

The key activities and services offered under the section include the following:

• Skills Development: Demand-driven training programs on fruit and vegetable processing technologies are offered to students, researchers, prospective entrepreneurs, SMEs, the industrial community, associations, special groups, and NGOs among others. The training programs are tailor-made to suit the needs of our clients.
• Business Incubation: The department nurtures enterprises engaged in value addition to horticulture produce most especially fruits and vegetables both in-house and outside UIRI premises (virtual). Under this programme, enterprises are offered support in form of production facilities, product improvement, technical assistance and business development and marketing services. 
• Product improvement:

  The technical team under the section work with the enterprises under incubation to continuously improve the quality, safety, and competitiveness of the products. This is to ensure that all products produced by incubates under the section conform to food standards and customer requirements.

• SMEs Outreach Services: We offer community outreach services to farmers, groups, associations in different parts of the country to enable them start-up value addition business operations. This way, we are able to promote growth of small cottage industries across the country. 

Other Services Include:

• Commercialisation of novel fruit and vegetable prototypes
• Pilot plant processing
• Outsourcing machinery for prospective entrepreneurs interested in setting up fruit and vegetable processing facilities
• Provision of technical and advisory services to start-ups and the general public