During a recent visit to Malawi, we visited some of our growth programmes for an extensive interview with their founders about the company, their lives and entrepreneurship in their country.

Hortinet is on a mission to save the Malawian banana crop. After an outbreak of the banana bunchy top disease, almost 80% of the Malawian banana crop was destroyed. As a response, Frankie Washoni founded Hortinet and started the first commercial plant tissue culture lab in Malawi. Today, Frankie is growing healthy banana seedlings and distributing them among Malawian farmers. The farmers sell their crops back to Hortinet for value addition and further distribution on the market. This way, Hortinet not only has a strong business model, but also provides countless smallholder farmers in Malawi with a decent income and job safety. With their eyes set on expanding into the banana and potato market, the future looks bright for Hortinet.

Part 1: Work

Can you tell me a bit more about what Hortinet does?

Frankie: Hortinet Foods Limited is a social enterprise working towards commercializing the potato and banana value chain in Malawi. When talking about the banana and potato value chain, as a country we are facing some serious challenges in terms of our farmers' access to clean seeds. We also have limited number of varieties. As Hortinet, what we are trying to do is to multiply seedlings so that we can negotiate production contracts with farmers for them to produce the crops for us. We provide what we call extension service, so that they can grow the bananas and the potatoes according to our standards. Then at the end of the day, we offtake the product for either distribution or value addition. We normally work with smallholder farmers. We provide them with planting material, because a lot of small holder farmers struggle with access to seeds for bananas or potatoes that are of superior quality. We want to make sure that the farmers are partaking in the production before we offtake that product for value addition and distribution.

Why is it a challenge to get good seeds?

Frankie: As a country, maybe ten years ago, we used to be safe and reliant on bananas. But the seed systems were challenged and because of the banana bunchy top disease, our banana crops got wiped out. This affected the livelihoods of so many farmers, since over 3,000,000 farmers used to rely on banana production to aid their living. We saw that need to provide these farmers with clean planting material so that they can go back to the livelihood that they are used to, banana production. That's the solution that we are trying to provide. We saw an opportunity to invest into our tissue culture laboratory, so that we we can be multiplying healthy seedlings for distribution. We donate free banana plantlets, then negotiate production contracts with smallholder farmers.

And you're doing the same with potatoes?

Frankie: Yes, we want to do the same for potatoes. When a farmer gets a banana plantlet, it’s going to take at least twelve months before they can start harvesting and it will take time to get the income from this. We want to help those that can afford to grow potatoes, because potatoes only need three to four months before they're harvestable. This way, a farmer can already get income from the potatoes while waiting for the bananas. As a country, we are also facing serious challenges concerning the potato seeds, because most of the farmers just recycle, harvest, recycle, harvest .... And of late, we've seen a decline in terms of yield. Another challenge that we have in the country is that we don't have more varieties. We don't have suitable superior varieties for making french fries or crisps. Most of the crisps that you find in the shelves of our supermarkets are imported, because our varieties cannot compete with them in terms of quality. So that's the direction that I want to go in with Hortinet, introducing a few new varieties that are suitable for processing, making french fries, making crisps. We'll use the same business model as with the bananas, multiplying the plantlets through the very same facility and then negotiating production contracts with smallholder farmers.

How and when did you start?

Frankie: We started very small in 2015, only growing bananas. Then, because of our business model of working with smallholder farmers, we got an acceleration grant from the Flanders Seed fund. That's when we started growing. But, because a lot of farmers were interested in working with bananas, we noticed there was a challenge for them to get the planting material. That's when we had the idea of putting up the lab, so that we can multiply banana seedlings and service a lot of smallholder farmers. We finalized the lab late 2019 and were the very first plant commercial tissue culture laboratory here in Malawi. Being the first, we needed to have technical expertise. This is science and we needed to make sure that we are following proper protocols, so that at the end of the day we produce enough planting material. But we could not get proper expertise within the country, being the first. Fortunately, we managed to engage with Exchange and they were very willing to provide that support to us. Exchange came in and took our staff to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria for training. Our staff stayed there for most two or three weeks to understand all the protocols and the safety systems to do with bananas.

What are you most proud of?

Frankie: I think what we are most proud of is that we've managed to put up the first plant commercial tissue culture laboratory. I see this as a game changer in the banana production in Malawi, because that will help us multiply a lot of banana plantlings at the same time, work with a lot of smaller farmers and put up enough hectarage so that the farmers that used to rely on banana production to aid their living, can get back to their livelihood. In terms of our business, we should also be able to collect enough raw material to supply to the urban market as well, so we can create variation in a sustainable way.

What are your ambitions and long term goals for the company?

Frankie: In the long term, we are looking at influencing the import situation in Malawi. With our business model, we are trying to engage smallholder farmers to grow the products for us. For this, we are looking at two primary crops, the potato and the banana, because most of the value added products of these crops are actually imported. We want to substitute the imports, at the same time making sure that the farmers that we work with are also getting a decent income. It's a win-win situation. Hortinet is growing, making profits out of what we are getting from the farmers. But the farmers are also doing better in terms of their livelihoods, in terms of their income. What we now want to do is establish enough raw material to start processing. For the bananas, apart from selling fresh bananas to the supermarkets, we also want to start making banana flour and banana crisps. For the potatoes, we are mainly looking at introducing new varieties that can compete with the imported products. In terms of value addition, we want to at least be working on the french fries and the potato crisps.

We also want to focus on the smallholder farmers' livelihoods. It's job creation, but also making sure that their life standards are actually improving. We're already noticing some of those indicators with the farmers that we are working with, because now they have access to the markets, they are sure. But apart from that, you can also appreciate that a banana is an alternative food security crop. Apart from selling, they can also use it as food. So our work is there to make sure that the farmers are food secure, but at the end of the day, they are also making a business out of what they are doing.

Part 2: Exchange

What has your experience with Exchange been like?

Frankie: Our experience with Exchange has been great. Putting up the first plant commercial tissue culture laboratory in the country, we needed to have some learnings from abroad. We also needed to get a commercial touch that we can base our learnings and protocols on. We tried looking for this expertise within Malawi, but did not find it. Exchange not only sent our staff to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria, but also facilitated two visits from the technical expert from Nigeria to make sure that we were on the right track. The partnership with Exchange has helped us to be capable of multiplying enough plantlets. In 2021, we had a backlog of farmers that were waiting for us to give them planting material, but because of the lack of technical expertise, our capacity was not yet enough to produce the plantlets. Now we are capable of producing enough planting material and we are working with almost 4000 outgrower farmers. By the end of the coming four years, we are aiming to work with 7000 to 8000 smallholder farmers. So we are on the right track. It is important to consider that as a country, over 90% of the bananas we are consuming are imported. We've started engaging the Malawian farmers, and once we reach 8000 to 10,000 farmers, we should be able to substitute 60% of the imports using local production.

Can you tell us a bit more about the coach and the experts you worked with?

Frankie: So in terms of the support from Exchange, we've been put in contact with a coach to oversee our business growth. We are seeing some growth now, both on the financial side and the production side, and it's slightly overwhelming. So we also have to make sure that in terms of financial growth, we are doing the right thing, so that as a business, we can keep growing organically. We've been working with our coach, Johan Cottenie, to make sure that we are we are using the right processes and pricing. This is still a work in progress; we are now focusing on our strategy for the coming three years. Exchange is also going to help us make sure that we can work with potential investors. If you ask me, we've now done the basics, creating the frameworks, having a proper finance, a structure and an institution that we did not have in place before. It's not easy, but with the support from the coach, we are now working on our strategy for the coming years.

Part 3: Life

Can you tell me a bit more about yourself?

Frankie: My name is Frankie Washoni, the firstborn in a family of eight. I'm an agronomist by profession, but I'm also so passionate about farming. I like seeing plants grow and doing something with it. It is because of that passion that I got engaged in agro-related business. But I also like working with people. That's why we engage smallholder farmers. I'm so passionate to work on the reducing imports in Malawi - most of the products that we as a country import, we can make ourselves. Why should we import? I know this cannot be achieved by myself alone, but if we hold hands with eachother and work with smallholder farmers to achieve something, why wouldn't it work? In my free time, I also farm as a hobby. I don't like buying things that I know I can do myself, so I grow some vegetables. I also love watching football and I'm a big fan of Manchester United.

What inspires you in life?

Frankie: To see, at the end of the day, a final product of whatever we are doing. It was so exciting to start up a lab and then see the results. We are now able to see the number of plantlets and I'm happy because we can see how many smallholder farmers we're working with. But at the end of the day, what I want to achieve and what inspires me, is to see the value addition to the products we are working with. I mentioned in a previous answer that we are trying to promote the production of bananas and potatoes. I'll be very happy to see this dream come true, holding in my hand our own qualitative and nicely packaged bag of potato crisps. That's what motivates me: to know that at the end of the day, we need to get there.

Part 4: Entrepreneurship and Malawi

How do you look at entrepreneurship in Malawi? What do you think about the business climate?

Frankie: Entrepreneurship is coming up in Malawi, but still needs a bit of mindset change so that we can produce a lot of local entrepreneurs. I think from a government level, we need the political will to create an enabling environment for local entrepreneurs to thrive. Of late, we've seen some effort being done by the government to make sure this happens, but we are not there yet. In fact, the biggest challenge right now is the lack of this enabling environment. In the agribusiness, as a farmer in Malawi, most of the commercial banks are reluctant to lend you money. They see farming as a risky profession. In most other countries, you have what you call agricultural banks, but here we still don't have that. So it's still a work in progress. We are seeing some efforts from the government. But I will say there are also a lot of opportunities. As a country, we are importing most of our products. But many products, like bananas or potato crisps, we can do locally. It's an opportunity for a local entrepreneur to go into this space.

What difference would you like to see the most?

Frankie: What I really want to see is a situation where as a country we are self-reliant on some of these products that we are now importing. When we talk about growing potatoes, we have the right environment. We have the right soil. We have farmers. We just need to do the right things. So at the end of the day, I'll be happy if I see that Malawi is self-reliant. Right now, we are actually importing jobs instead of creating the jobs for our local people. Of course, zero importation is not realistic, but I would like to see some significant change. And if we get to the point where we are capable of exporting these products as well, I will be very satisfied.

What do you like most about Malawi?

Frankie: Malawi is a peaceful country, very peaceful. I like it. And the people are very friendly. I think that's impossible to miss when you visit this country.