I was astounded when a close business ally sent me a detailed ebook on the research I paid him to carry out for me in United Kingdom concerning the by-products of tomato. I still cannot believe my eyes after reading this material; when he called to tell me that he will do me a favour of sending those products to me later – the result of the research the carried out in a food science lab at Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom. The last time I went to Kaduna through Kano; I was so startled to see the tones of tomato waste away on the high way or specifically at sabongeri market in Kano. Do you know the amount of products we can generate from the so called “spoilt tomatoes” we throw away? Tomato is not only used in making stew, jollof rice, or soup! There are other economical by-products we can process from tomatoes. Let me start with ethanol $ methylated spirits (bio-fuel). Not many of us know that we can ferment spoilt or mashed tomatoes to produce organic fuel that can be used in powering hybrid vehicles. We can also ferment tomatoes with the help of enzymes through exothermic reaction to get methylated spirit used in our hospitals today. The methyl compound comes from the enzymes used in fermenting the tomatoes – guess what! Those tomatoes that are spoilt could be used in doing this; as a result, there wont be food competition. Another benefit for using tomatoes for either the making of biofuel or methylated spirit is that this by-products are friendly to our environment and do not release harsh carbon compound to our environment. Looking at other processed food item from tomatoes. All we know about tomatoes is tomato purry, chopped tomatoes, plum tomatoes, and fresh tomatoes for our stew and soup: how many of us have heard about tomato flour? I mean a staple flour you can use in eating our locally made soup … From tomatoes, we can make tomato flour – we can bleach this flour organically to make them either pure white or cream colour; depending on your product signature as a company. Now the one that will shock you is he fact that this flour from tomato are very friendly to diabetic patient; this is because it is enriched with fibre and has zero sugar content in it. Now the same flour from tomato are used in making paster in UK, Holland, Denmark, Norway and China – this is their government initiative in these country to fight diabetes. In Brazil, they produce ethanol not only from sugar, but also from rotten tomatoes to drive their cars. In US, it is 80% ethanol and 20% premium motor spirit; and in Brazil, it is 100% ethanol. Imagine that we have factories in Nigeria that can mop up these spoilt tomatoes for just ethanol alone; consider the job that this will provide in it chain: I dont want to mention the economic value this would bring for such business organization. The market for ethanol globally currently stand at $4.2trillion – the whole forex market put together globally. Analyst believe that the market size for ethanol will increase up to $10trillion by 2019; as many nation are looking for other ways to provide energy that is friendly to environment. But we in Nigeria, all we could do with tomatoes is only make stew and soup; thats all! United States of America is keying into his opportunity big time; now there is one thing I love about the American dream which I will replicate here in Nigeria. In the state, individuals who are enterprising, people who are full of zest and purpose driven: they dont wait for the government to do anything for them. Once they have an opportunity to make money, they go for it straight-on: they organize board meetings, build business plans once they catch a vision that will yield them tones of catch. Once the have enough me to float their business and work with the government; thats when the real business starts. Those of them that hit excess cash will go as far as influencing the government to make policies that will safe guard the environment for their businesses. If Americans were Nigerians, I wonder the fate of their nation … I had always opined that our problem is not the government, but our limited knowledge in business which include how to build it and access fund for it. Funny enough, I have seen youths in this nation, in hundreds of thousands that have a lovely idea for business but do not know how to fund it. Some have these money, but dont know how to get these businesses. We need serious business education in our country – the undoing of our country is the negative perceptions we have created in doing business amongst ourselves as Nigerians. Now that the globe is drift from an oil economy to an environmentally friendly economy; I believe is time we embrace agriculture fully as citizens of this great nation. Im not a prophet, but with Im seeing in nanotechnology, the advancement of bioenergy through agriculture: in 10 years from now, oil economy will be obsolete. Two years ago, I fed my audience the importance of algae farming, even designed a blog for it: now Abu Dhabi, one of the oil blessed nation in the middle east; provide 42% of their energy need from algae, while US is just at 8% level wth $550 billion investment for research and development in 2013 – A whole university in US, Arizona State University specializes on Algae farming and its by-products. Finally, in the area of organic fertilizer, the filtrate or waste from the fermented tomatoes are dried, pelleted for greenyard manure which is very friendly to the soil. Also the feed waste realized from processing tomato into flour is used for farm feed. Everything is recyclable. Once these products arrive here in Nigeria, I will upload them for you to see, Peace.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 15:02:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015