Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Friday, February 27, 2015

Processing Soya goussi in Benin

17 February 2015. ICRA/BoPInnovation Center/2Scale.  the Coopérative de Transformation, d’Approvisionnement et d’Écoulement de Soja (CTAE) is a cooperative of farmers in Benin that produce soya goussi, a by-product of soya that can be consumed in sauce and that people like.

Goussi made from soybean. It tastes almost identical to traditional goussi and is more nutritious, more profitable and far less labor-intensive to produce.

It’s easy to produce, cheap, and full of proteins, but hardly anybody knows about it. Together with the farmers, 2Scale is developing marketing activities to increase the sales. This means creating attractive packaging, promotion messages for radio and print and organizing sessions where people can test the food. 2Scale closely monitors the results of all marketing efforts so that the project can quickly adapt and scale up.

In less than 2 years, soy goussi has become the main source of protein for at least 11,000 families in southern Benin. 2SCALE is supporting a new CTAE pilot program that aims to increase this number to 15,000. Read more on soya goussi in the 2SCALE newsletter (Jan-March 2014).

Another product from a group of farmers is soy cheese. Again, the product is affordable and nutritious, but it doesn’t sell. Talking to the farmers, they all had a different view on the reason why too few cheeses are sold. Some said the taste was bad, others said distribution was the issue, others said the product looked unattractive. To find out the actual reason and increase sales, 2Scale will initiate a market research. 2Scale will interview retailers and consumers to find out which priority to address first. From there we will start educating the farmers on hygiene, create larger distribution networks and what else is needed to improve the production and marketing of the cheese, based on the research outcomes.

Related
Related:To know more about Agri-business clusters (ABCs), you can have a look at the video United through markets: Building capacity for competitive agricultural systems and enterprises in W. Africa: 4 examples of Agri-Business Clusters in Ghana and Togo.

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