Bangladesh: Pran adopts aseptic processing for tomato pulp export

 Pran has started aseptically processing tomato pulp at its Barind Industrial Park in Rajshahi to attain a longer shelf life for enabling its export alongside grabbing a bigger share of processed tomato sales in the country.

Local press explains that “being aseptic denotes free from contamination by harmful bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms. This is achieved in food processing through sterilization of the product by heating and immediate cooling and of the containers using superheated steam, all the while ensuring that an aseptic sealed environment is maintained up to packaging”.

"Bangladesh used to import tomato pulp to produce sauces and ketchups here. Things have changed now and we plan to start exporting our produce this year," Kamruzzaman Kamal, director of marketing at Pran-RFL Group, explained. "It is the tomato farmers who will be the ultimate beneficiary if we are successful. The market will grow and it will generate employment," he said.

Pran, one of the country's leading food processors, has already been exporting tomato sauce and ketchup to 60 countries, including Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, US, Italy and Sweden.
Around Tk 250 crore (Euro 24.5 million, USD 29.5 million) worth of tomato sauce, ketchup and paste are sold in the country a year and the market is growing at 10 per cent annually.

Pran is leading in the market with its capacity of producing 18,000 tonnes of tomato sauce a year using its two plants in Rajshahi and Natore districts. For Pran's processed tomato products, life starts through contract farming, with growers producing tomatoes organically.
Cooler temperatures are suitable for tomato cultivation, for which the season ranges from December to February. This season, Pran has collected 5,200 tonnes of tomatoes until the last days of January. This year's cultivation contracts stipulate that the company will process 12,000 tonnes of tomatoes from 10,000 farmers in Rajshahi, Natore, Chapainawabganj, Pabna and Dinajpur districts. Last season, it procured 7,000 tonnes of tomatoes from 8,400 farmers.
The number of contract farmers is increasing by 20 per cent a year thanks to the efforts of Pran in providing them training and farming inputs and ensuring value of their product. The increase depicts the growing enthusiasm among farmers for finding value for their crops.
"Other than Pran, we have customers from across the country. The demand for our product is increasing for its quality and high yield," said a grower, adding that “he produces at least 10 tonnes of tomatoes from 1,337 square meters of land (about 75 mT/ha) in the three months”.

Pran buys tomatoes from the farmers and takes those to its state-of-the-art plant that produces tomato pulp. The company finally takes the pulp to its plant in Natore for producing sauces and ketchup. "We have plans to begin producing sauces and ketchup from our Rajshahi plant in the near future," said Sayed Sarwar Hossain, manager of Pran's Rajshahi plant.

Some complementary data
https://www.pranfoods.net/

Evolution of estimated imports of tomato products to Bangladesh over past 20 years: the quantities exported to Bangladesh by the reporting countries do not exceed a few thousand tonnes for tomato paste and a few hundred for sauces It was not possible to identify any export flows from Bangladesh to foreign countries by our official trade statistics provider (Trade Data Monitor LLC).

Further details in attached documents: