How a DRC entrepreneur turns mangoes into money

Many people dream of a job. Others create their own job.  At the sight of what she calls "cemeteries" of unharvested mangoes lying on the ground in the Bas-Congo region, Gratitude Ntonda Mandiangu decided one day to start her own business. Today she earns a living by turnng this unnecessary waste into a resource.
“Passion fruit juice here, mango juice there, the ginger and orange juices at the back. And here the honey and mead used as sweeteners,” says Gratitude.
The sound of clinking glass bottles fills the 25-square-metre workshop where the young Congolese woman turns surplus fruit into delicious drinks. “We had to find a way to add value to this readily available raw material,” says the 25-year-old qualified food-processing technician.
Established in 2008, her microenterprise is called Cetrapal, an acronym for the Centre for the Transformation of Local Food Products. Modest start-up funds from the European Union allowed her to purchase necessary equipment for the business. Today, Miss Gratitude, as she calls herself, employs a score of women from her native Kisantu to clean, cut, crush, sterilize and bottle the fruit.
On her own
At the start, efforts by some to discourage her only strengthened Gratitude’s determination to prove that women can be successful entrepreneurs. “I pushed forward,” she recalls.
Her parents, also employed in agriculture, fully supported the launch of her company. Her mother manages a few fields only a short walk away from Gratitude's workshop. Does that mean Cetrapal is a family business? Definitely not.
“She has to succeed on her own,” says her mother. Mixing family and business in this part of the world is a recipe for bankruptcy, she states succinctly.
A plan that makes sense
In the DRC, a lack of vehicles and poor roads make it almost impossible to get most of the fruit to the market on time. So Gratitude’s business plan makes sense.
But can such a small company survive? Established multinationals already have systems for retailing beverages that are more efficient than the local ones.
A few kilometres from Ceptrapal at the splendid Kisantu botanical garden, the outdoor café has to disappoint one customer who requests a locally made juice. They only serve the usual soft drinks at this establishment, which prides itself on helping to preserve Bas-Congo’s agricultural heritage. Yet if adequately managed, the agricultural resources of this fertile region could meet the entire country’s food needs.[related-articles]
Antiquated agriculture
Like a number of international organizations and African governments, Gratitude believes the DRC's future lies in agriculture. However, because it is often perceived as hard work with no payoff, the industry does not appeal to the younger generation.
But rather than the hoe-toting agriculture of "antiquity", Gratitude thinks that more modern, mechanized practices should be promoted. In her opinion: “Once Congolese people manage to eat well, everything wil fall into place.”
Entrepreneur Gratitude dreams of collaborating with large international companies, as well as with more successful competitors in West Africa. She wants to use them as models “and even do better”. A triumph in itself, Cetrapal juices are already being sold at a supermarket a few hours' drive away, in the capital Kinshasa and elsewhere in the DRC.
Still, Miss Gratitude hopes that her juices will one day quench the thirst of the whole continent and, why not, the rest of the word.