_____________________________

The Soroti Fruit Factory is set to resume processing mangoes in the next two weeks, the facility's CEO, Julius Martin Ekomu, revealed Thursday.

Since the new mango line was installed in the factory in December 2022, it only had processing trials of between 300,000 to 400,000 kilogrammes of local mangoes.

This was the period the local mangoes were available around May and June 2023.

The factory officials confirmed on Thursday that they are preparing to buy 110,000 kilogrammes of improved mangoes worth sh49.5m at the end of next week.

Mangoes will be bought from farmers at the same rate of sh450 per kilogramme, according to CEO Ekomu.

He revealed that the improved mangoes that they will start processing in a fortnight will push them until May when the local mangoes will be available.

Meanwhile, in a strategic move to support local farmers and ensure the continuous operation of the Soroti Fruit Factory, management recently announced an emergency purchase of oranges.

From November 2023 to early January 2024, the factory managed to buy up to one million kilogrammes of oranges worth sh450 million from local farmers across Teso as they navigated challenges related to inadequate funding.

Complaints about 'middlemen' were rife among farmers. The factory worked out a countermeasure.

"There were complaints initially about middlemen, so we communicated to the farmers that we were going to come down to the ground to see where we are buying these oranges from," said Ekomu.

"This helped us to buy oranges from the real farmers. And I think many farmers will testify to that.

"There were of course a few people who dropped out after realizing we were going down to see the farms and where these oranges are coming from and this is helping us in eliminating the assumed or the so-called middlemen.

"We will continue with this exercise [of] going down to the people.