The sweetpotato crop has gained prominence as a food security crop due to its short growth cycle and ability to survive in diverse agro-ecologies. It is a low-input crop with a stable yield even under sub-optimal growing conditions, where important cereal food crops do not grow. Its diverse use in the processing industry has created more demand for the crop in Africa.

Over the last few years, the International Potato Center (CIP) has promoted the use of orange-fleshed sweetpotato puree technology in the processing industry. The puree provides a cheaper and more nutritious alternative replacing up to 50% of wheat in baked and fried products and saving processors up to 20% in costs. It is already in use by supermarket outlets and processors in Kenya, to make diverse sweetpotato products like bread and buns and by other small-scale informal vendors making chapati. With the current global wheat crisis, the demand for the puree is growing and now with its use in neighboring countries like Uganda, Ethiopia and Malawi, the demand increased.

In 2019, under the Development and Delivery of Bio-fortified crops at Scale (DDBIO) project, funded by the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) of the United Kingdom; CIP partnered with North Carolina State University (NCSU), a US based company SinnovaTek, LLC and a Kenyan company Burton & Bamber Co. Ltd (B&B) to establish the first continuous-flow microwave system for sweetpotato purée production in Kenya. CIP supported B&B’s acquisition of microwave aseptic purée processing and packaging equipment from SinnovaTek, while providing technical training in sweetpotato purée production. The unit is the first of it its kind in the East Africa region and will be able to support processors’ access more shelf-stable puree, that can be stored for up to 12 months on the shelf without refrigeration.

This microwave processing technology will officially be launched on 25^th October 2022 at Burton and Bamber Factory, in Sofia, Machakos county.