Through the CAFSI program, Plenty is working with four organizations, supporting their efforts to expand access to low cost, highly quality foods, increase employment opportunities in their communities and establish sustainable small businesses. During the months of March, April and May, 2005, I was in Nicaragua and Guatemala working with three of our CAFSI partners.

SOYNICA

Chuck testing new date and batch coding machine.

In Nicaragua, Plenty is working with SOYNICA, helping to increase production capacity at its food processing operation, Casa Nutrem. Casa Nutrem has been producing and distributing soy foods since 1994. It presently employs 14 people who produce and distribute soymilk, tofu, smoked soy cheese, and 3 products made from okara, a by-product of the milk making process. Casa Nutrem also makes six dry powder drink mixes made from different combinations of corn, soy beans, oats, rice, green leaf concentrate and spices, including cinnamon, cloves, semilla de jicaro (calabash seed), and cacao.

On this trip I worked with CASA Nutrem staff, helping them with installing and learning to efficiently operate some new equipment including a steam jacketed cooker, sanitary milk pumps, a milk/pulp extractor, a new plate heat exchanger, walk-in cooler, liquid filling machine and a date and batch coding machine. We worked on improving the milk flavors and develop ice bean-cream recipes. We had meetings to discuss new labeling designs, names for the milk products and ways to improve the distribution of their products to clients in Managua. Casa Nutrem presently has about 80 small and large stores that buy their products each week.

UPAVIM

After working with SOYNICA for five weeks, I spent three weeks in Guatemala City helping UPAVIM (the large women’s cooperative in barrio Esperanza) set up a soymilk-making operation, and attended several planning meetings with members of ADIBE (the community cooperative that manages the original Mayan "soyaria" in Solola. I was assisted in Guatemala by Jorge Humberto Gonzales, a young man who had known and worked with Plenty volunteers in Guatemala when he was a teenager. It was great to get re-acquainted with Jorge. He was volunteering his services at UPAVIM, helping international volunteers to improve their Spanish language skills. Jorge will be helping Plenty provide more technical assistance for the women at UPAVIM over the next few months.

In the first few days of this visit we worked on getting the UPAVIM walk-in cooler operating. It had been installed about three years earlier and did not work. The compressor had been set out on a ledge about 18 inches wide and three stories above the cement ground. There was no way of getting to it accept by walking around the building on that ledge and holding on to the window bars at the same time. We finally opened up a wall to the machine and found a local refrigeration technician who installed a new compressor and got it operating as it should. We helped local staff locate and purchase a machine that could grind the soybeans, got the steam jacketed cooker working, design and build a screw press to help extract the milk from the pulp, and also build a large platform on which we placed a steam jacketed cooker so it could feed the press by gravity.

After the equipment was set up, we conducted six workshops to help the UPAVIM staff learn to operate the equipment. UPAVIM's soy food staff is now making and selling about 70 liters of soy milk two times a week. They are also including okara (soy meal remaining from the milk making process) into the tamales, chilli rellenos, masa for tortas, breads and cookies that are processed and sold to people living in Esperanza. Plenty is committed to providing further technical assistance to the UPAVIM food processing operation, "UPASOY" during the rest of this year.

ADIBE

ADIBE is the non-profit development organization that was established by people in Molino Belen about three years ago to manage the soyaria and other community development programs. Their board is voted in by community residents. Since my last visit two years ago, ADIBE has tried to expand sales of its soy products by setting up 2 small retail outlets, one in Solola and one in Panajachel.

Last year, with financial assistance from Plenty, ADIBE was able to complete a major upgrade of their soy food processing building. They rebuilt the roof and installed tile on the floor and walls. During this trip Plenty's Executive Director, myself and Jorge Gonzales met with community representatives and soy processing staff to discuss what could be done to obtain needed tools and equipment, improve staff skills and expand sales of the milk, tofu, tempeh and cereal products produced at the community owned soy processing facility. Over the next year Plenty will send two or three soy food specialists to help ADIBE's food processing staff improve quality control procedures, develop new recipes and products, install new pieces of equipment and expand marketing opportunities.