A New Joint Venture in Fruit Processing

Links between farmers, a wholesaler, processor, and international buyer yield an opportunity for growth

Cambodia’s Pursat oranges are gaining recognition as the sweet and flavorful fruit gains favor in international markets. The oranges are marked by their unique green skin when ripe and have sweet, yellow center.

Khun Sopheap, an orange collector and producer in Pursat province, partnered with the Feed the Future Cambodia Harvest II project some years ago to address challenges faced during the dry season. He worked closely with Harvest II to establish and strengthen contract agreements with his producers and connected with an agro-input firm to custom-design a water management system for his farm. After installing the system, the daily watering during the dry season created a continuous orange harvest, providing a more stable year-round supply.

Harvest II has been working with Pursat-based orange buyer Mr. Khun Sopheap to improve production by connecting with input firms and conducting exposure visits, formalizing agreements with producers, as well as connecting to a fruit processor Misota. 

Knowing the value of the year-round supply, Harvest II connected Sopheap to a local fruit processor in Battambang, Misota Food Import Export Co. Ltd. After Misota conducted a site visit to Mr. Sopheap’s farm, they ordered 500 kg of fresh oranges to perform product trials. The two parties worked together testing product quality, reliability of the supply chain, the quality of processed samples, all to ensure the viability of the partnership.  After finding success processing the product, Misota began ordering 10 tons of fresh oranges to process into dried oranges to conduct market surveys. Misota has displayed and evaluated the product at exhibitions, trade fairs and other events and observed a strong public interest.

Showcasing their new products at exhibitions, trade fairs and other events provides Misota the opportunity to gain insights into customer preferences.

Recognizing the success of the collaboration, Misota and Mr. Sopheap agreed to a joint-venture investment, budgeting 150,000 USD (50% each) as cash advances to ten orange producers in Pursat province. The activities will help Mr. Sopheap scale up supply, providing working capital to producers.  The agreement secures needed quantity and quality of supply for Misota and creates value added for a local product. 

“I am very excited to join the partnership with Misota, and I am proud that I can fulfill my dream. I dreamed Cambodian oranges would be able to be processed into value-added products like dried orange and orange juice for the local and international market. This adds another chapter to the story of Cambodian oranges.” shared Mr. Sopheap.

A meeting among key mango market actors facilitated by Harvest II, and supported by Kirirom Food Production’s business network, created the opportunity for Harvest II to match Misota to Japan Farm Products (Cambodia) Co. Ltd., a Japanese company looking to export dried fruit to Japanese markets. The company conducted a site visit to Misota’s factory to observe processing and factory standards, subsequently providing technical staff to train the Misota team, share processing techniques and teach factory management in order to meet Japan’s high-quality standards. 

Following the training, Japan Farm Products imported 15 tons of Japanese mandarin to Misota’s factory, and after processing, the product was packaged and exported back to Japan. Japan Farm Products plans to export other dried fruit from Misota, including orange, pineapple and mango. This exercise proved to be successful and provides Misota avenues to expand its current core activity of fruit processing, as well as adding benefits to producers like Mr. Sopheap.

The linking together of key actors and building on that relationship strengthened the supply chain, addressed product quality, fostered trust and provided a joint investment opportunity to accelerate growth and development across the national horticulture sector and expansion to international markets.