Tawanda Muzhingi¹, and Antonio Magnaghi²

1. Food and Nutritional Evaluation Laboratory (FANEL), Nutrition Platform at the Biosciences for east and central Africa (BecA), ILRI Hub, CIP-SSA Regional Office, Old Naivasha Road, Nairobi, Kenya. muzhingi@cgiar.org +254718608534
2. Euro-Ingredients Limited, Corner Commercial and Enterprise Avenue, Industrial area, Nairobi, Kenya. antonio@euroingredients.net

Background: Orange fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) is a biofortified crop rich in provitamin A carotenoids. OFSP value chain development involves value addition on OFSP to increase the diversity of OFSP utilization, reduce post-harvest losses and creating market opportunities for the crop.  Sweetpotato is one of the least marketed crops in SSA and has been considered a poor man’s crop, grown by women on marginal lands and often consumed as snack boiled or baked. Approach: Currently, the International Potato Center (CIP) is working in SSA with private sector, development partners and local governments to increase the adoption of OFSP, increase household food security, and provide urban consumers with healthier food choices. OFSP processing is still in nascent stage in SSA and identifying the bottlenecks and proposing solution will led to successful scaling up. This presentation focuses on experiences gained while working on OFSP product development in Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Lessons learnt 1) Demand creation and nutrition education and awareness 2) Stakeholder identification and engagement 3) private sector partner buy in and engagement 4) Due diligence on private sector partner 4) Commitments, accountability and contractual agreements 5) Joint financing of activity 6) Training, capacity development and technology demonstration/transfer 7) product development, product launching, market analysis and support 8) Costing and economic viability and launch. Observations: We found out there is a lot of interest in OFSP processing in SSA, but there are few challenges that must be addressed to launch economically viable OFSP