Fruit Dryer Machine

 Written by: Yama Rahi

Most residents of the villages of Afghanistan are growing fruit trees and sell their products during its season but some gardeners could not find a good market to their fruits and they dry them in the traditional way and sell them in other seasons and some fruits spoil during drying and the gardeners face loss.

Abdul Wakil, a resident of Parwan province is producing fruit dryer machines.

AEPO’s writer/producer has talked to him about his activity.

Abdul Wakil says: “I have a factory of producing fruit and vegetables dryer machines. These machines dry any kind of fruit like apricot, grapes, melon, and vegetables. I started my job in the field of agriculture 16 years ago and at the beginning, I made a machine from a table and plastic but it was spoiling fruits and vegetables. Later I used my skills and succeeded to make another machine. 

I use iron, solar penal, glass, plastic, a mixture of alkaline and glass fiber, copper and ammonium wires.

We manufacture the machines according to our customers' orders in different sizes, 50 kgs - 1000 kgs but more customers like 500 kgs - 1000 kgs machines.

We produce two types of machines: the first type uses gas and the second type uses solar penal.  The first type could dry fruits and vegetables within twelve hours and the second type would dry them in two days. The price of the first type machine is one Afs.760000 and the price of the second type is Afs. 1140000. The production of a machine takes one month and I take 10% benefit from each machine. Last year I have sold about 300 fruit dryer machines.

Our customers are gardeners and, at the same time, we have contracts with agencies working in agricultural fields, and the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development also purchase these machines.

Shampoo production:

Hamid Habeeb, a resident of Kabul city says: "According to our assessment, more than 3,000 types shampoos are introduced in the Afghan markets, we thought that, despite the rich natural resources, we could be able to produce such a product and boost our work. We think of a few things in competition: better quality, the use of the natural materials available in Afghanistan, low prices, marketing and advertising for products and proper packaging.

 At the beginning, we prepared our raw material which includes Phosphate Sodium and pomegranate extract and others. At present time, we use only pomegranate extract in producing shampoo and in the near future, we decide to use the extract of other fruits as well.

We are trying to introduce a shampoo to the market that would be better and cheaper than the imported one.

Although fewer people are interested to purchase domestic goods it seems to have a bright future.