Tajik Fruit Company

The product my company will produce is clean quality dried apricots. Original varieties for apricots around the world are found in the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia (the Asht region of the Sugd Province of Tajikistan is in the Ferghana Valley) where I plan to establish my business. In the United States the apricots will be marketed under the brand name CandyCot by Lancaster International Trading Company because of its high sugar content.

Tajikistan currently markets thousands of tons of low quality apricots from its 11,000 hectares of apricots orchards to countries of the former USSR. However, I will produce a high quality dried apricot that will compete in United States, Europe, Russia and elsewhere.

My greatest current need is to purchase land and construct a permanent processing facility. I plan to purchase world standard apricot processing equipment from Turkey that will wash and calibrate the apricots and hire up to 32 employees the first year to start my business who will grade and package the apricots for export. I will purchase the apricot supplies directly from private local farmers.

Currently my marketing strategy is keep strong relationships with my current partners, Myron Stoltzfus, John Driver and Thomas Brown. John has known me for the past 6 years, Myron for the past four years and Thomas Brown for the past year. They have trained me in processing dried apricots, have seen the product I made in 2006 and want to continue buying my product. I would also like to set up marketing on internet trade platforms.

Tajikistan currently markets thousands of tons of low quality apricots to countries of the former USSR. However, I will produce a high quality dried apricot that will compete in United States, Europe and elsewhere. I will market to wholesale food distributors, package the product in 5 - 12.5 kg cardboard boxes and ship by container to the buyer.

Competitors of Tajik Fruit Company are other apricot producers on the world market, most significantly, Turkish and Californian apricots. There are also other exporters of apricots from within Tajikistan, but they are only marketing low quality apricots to countries of the former USSR.

The sweetness, size and bright colors of the dried apricots from the Ferghana Valley are unmatched in the world market. The sugar content of my dried apricots is more than 100% than of Californian and Turkish apricots.

As already mentioned, the world western markets have yet to taste dried apricots from the Ferghana Valley, that are cleaned, sized, and graded according to international Western standards. When they do, they will never be satisfied with other apricots currently in the Western markets.

Compared to other apricot exporters in Tajikistan, nobody else is producing the quality standard that we will produce.

To ensure the growth of our business, we need to maintain our standard on quality to be sure that our initial customers are satisfied and continue to market our products. We are sure that when our apricots hit the Western markets the demand will increase significantly.

There are few, if any, in the Sugd Province (the northern province of four provinces in Tajikistan) that has the knowledge, understanding of world market standards, skills and expertise of dried apricot processing which I have.

I am the director of Tajik Fruit Company, but will also hire an accountant, supplies, production, sales managers and processing personnel.

I will be establishing this business in my home region and I know the needs and local apricot economy of my region very well. For 7 years I worked in a development NGO, learned alot about commnity development and have received much training from Western development workers in seeing this business opportunity as a way to develop my community. I have received much technical and quality control training for developing this business including HACCP training.

I intend for this business to be my sole means of income and am willing to invest up to but not limited to 60 hours a week to see the business succeed.

I plan to hire 50 or more employees who will work in processing dried apricots. This will directly impact their families’ income. Our suppliers, local apricot raising fruit farmers, will also be impacted as they will have a buyer to whom they can sell their quality products.

I desire to invite agriculture specialists to hold training to benefit the local fruit farmers on proper pruning, spraying, harvesting and drying techniques.