Bangladesh is now among the world's best in fruit production, and output is growing at a geometric rate. But processing has not kept pace.

Investment in the processing industry has risen over the past few years, yet it covers less than two per cent of total fruit production. Other leading producers like Bangladesh process more than half their fruit into food products. Because the processing industry is weak, huge quantities of fruit are wasted every year.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Bangladesh is among the top ten countries in the world in seasonal and tropical fruit production, and ninth in total fruit production. It is near the top of the world rankings for particular seasonal fruits such as mango, jackfruit and guava.

The worrying fact is that the rate of processing surplus fruit is dismal. Around 20 to 40 per cent of fruit is lost each year for lack of processing, worth close to Tk 2,000 crore according to various studies.

The international market research firm Fortune Business Insights puts the processing rate of fruit-producing countries worldwide at 45 per cent: roughly half of what a country produces is turned into various foods. Analysis of data from other global research firms shows the rate is higher still in developed countries. The United States, several European countries and some others process more than 70 per cent of their fruit.

China, the world's largest fruit producer, processes 30 to 35 per cent of its output, because a large part of its fruit is exported fresh. In Thailand and Malaysia, two other leading producers, the processing rate is above 80 per cent.

Bangladesh and other South Asian countries lag far behind. India, second to China in total fruit production, processes only five per cent, though it exports fresh fruit. Bangladesh's fruit exports have not made notable progress either, and its processing industry is struggling under various constraints.

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global fruit and vegetable processing market was worth US$10.87 billion in 2025, with fruit accounting for about 40 per cent. Growing at a minimum of 8 per cent a year, the market will rise from US$11.71 billion in 2026 to US$21.21 billion by 2034, meaning the market for processed fruit and similar products will be about US$9.5 billion.

The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) says the country produced 1 crore 51 lakh tonnes of fruit last year. Even assuming a 2 per cent processing share, fruit products were made from only three lakh tonnes of fruit that year.

Data show that Bangladesh ranks a negligible 292nd in exports of processed dried food. The country's packaged food market is currently worth US$4.8 billion (480 crore dollars), which includes other processed agricultural products besides fruit. Another global statistic shows that Bangladesh sent processed products to 13 countries, but with a market share of only 0.03 per cent.

Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), believes the export market is not growing because of weakness in creating new destinations and diversifying products. "We are lagging behind in new destinations and diversified products for exports. The main buyers of our products are still Bangladeshi expatriates, in the ethnic market. We cannot produce beyond conventional goods to meet the demand of developed countries, so we are having no impact on the global market," he told Jagonews24.

Dr Md Golam Ferdous Chowdhury, chief scientific officer of the Postharvest Technology Division of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), told Jagonews24: "When the world is giving top priority to agro-processing and the market is growing, we are stuck at processing less than 2 per cent of our fruit. This is disappointing."

People in the sector say that besides weak diversification of destinations and products, the industry has not gained momentum because of inadequate government policy support, a limited range of commercial fruit varieties suited to processing, failure to follow GAP (good agricultural practices) in production, a shortage of large investment, a lack of productivity knowledge and technology, and the absence of effective research.

According to the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), the country has more than about one thousand agro-processing firms. Ninety per cent of them are micro and small, the remaining 10 per cent medium and large, with 20 large companies.

The large companies process fruit along with other products and export them, and 80 per cent of exports go through six or seven companies. Among the big industrial groups, Pran-RFL, Square, Akij, Bashundhara, Bombay Sweets and Sajeeb Group, among others, have made large investments in the sector.

The thousand or so micro and small entrepreneurs process fruit in conventional ways and all make the same kinds of products, such as pickles, amsatta (mango leather), chutney, kasundi, jam and jelly. They are limited to the main seasonal fruits such as mango, pineapple, guava, jackfruit and jujube.

The big groups produce processed frozen food, dried food, mango pulp and various fruit juices, exported to 148 countries. But about 60 per cent of their exports go to a handful of countries, and with little product variety, half of total exports are five or six types of product. Even the big companies are weak at creating new destinations and diversifying products.

Asked about the biggest obstacle to fruit processing, Syed Muhammad Shoaib Hasan, general secretary of the Bangladesh Agro-Processors' Association (BAPA), told Jagonews24: "First, we do not have good fruit varieties. Most of those we have are not suitable for processing."

Nobody has a plan for which fruit will be used where and how, according to variety and type, he said: no one knows which varieties of mango or jackfruit should be eaten fresh, which should become frozen food, which should be used for dried food and which should be made into pulp.

"We do not have the right technology. Nobody is researching locally available technology. Technologists and researchers never work together; there is no coordination between them," he said.

He also said regulators now treat producers as adversaries: "Officials of various government agencies occasionally come to inspect factories and fine entrepreneurs even when there is no fault."

Pran Group processes the most fruit in the country. At a workshop some time ago, group director Kamruzzaman Kamal said that excessive use of fertiliser and pesticides in crop production is in many cases making the country's food products unsafe, which harms processors. And because of unsafe crops, many products have to be imported even though they are available at home.

Saying there is no GAP (good agricultural practice) in the country, he said harmful heavy metals get into crops during production and cannot be separated during processing, which in turn damages the reputation of processing companies.

"There are weaknesses at the storage and supply stages. Much of the country's food spoils or becomes unsafe at these stages. There is no good testing laboratory in the country for food quality. We have repeatedly asked the government to set up a world-class laboratory. That has not happened," Kamal said.

He added that there are problems among the regulators and in policy. Starting a food business requires permission from about 42 agencies, followed by excessive renewal fees, licence fees and other charges, higher than in neighbouring or any competing country, which leaves the industry behind in global competition.

Ajit Kumar Das, head of BSP Food, told Jagonews24: "Bangladesh's fruits are mainly summer or seasonal. All the fruit has to be processed into pulp and stored within three or four months, which is very expensive. The lack of year-round fruit prevents the industry from using its full capacity."

He said the industry has never had attractive government policy support. "Large fruit processing plants and modern community-based cold stores should have been set up on a public-private partnership basis, but that did not happen."

When officials of big companies are struggling to expand the industry, small entrepreneurs are surely struggling even more. Ismail Khan Shamim, owner of Nawabi Mango, has made several products from mango.

"Every product I am working on now I had to develop through my own research. There is no expertise available in the country for working on non-traditional products. I struggled for many years to build a business," he told Jagonews24.

Pointing to the shortage of small and medium processing machinery, he said: "The availability of modern drying, processing and packaging machines is still a big challenge here. The country's technology base is very limited, so many entrepreneurs have to develop their own production methods by following foreign technology. But world-class products cannot be made this way."

Sohel Rana, an agricultural entrepreneur at Barind Agro Park, told Jagonews24: "Small entrepreneurs are sometimes given training, but because no good-quality machinery has been developed here, the machines have to be brought from abroad, which is very expensive. After that the business is no longer profitable."

Dr Mehedi Masud, a former project director and fruit expert who has long worked on fruit, told Jagonews24 that new fruit processing technologies from around the world have not reached Bangladesh, and that there is no system in the country for storing fruit before processing. So when plenty of fruit is produced at the height of the season, some is processed, but for the remaining nine months or so companies cannot store raw material, he said.

Fruit processing needs storage at minus 70 degrees Celsius, he said. "That does not exist in the country. So surplus fruit from the peak season is not processed and goes to waste."

A great deal of research is needed on fruit and fruit processing technology, he said, but sadly only 0.26 per cent of the agriculture budget goes to research, whereas major fruit-producing countries allocate at least more than 2 per cent of their agriculture budget to it.

BARI works as a research institute developing processing technology and has so far developed processing technologies for 24 kinds of fruit, though this is not enough by global standards. The technologies that have been developed have spread on a very limited scale through agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture. Among them, vacuum-fried chips of jackfruit, banana and potato are now popular, though only a handful of entrepreneurs make and sell them successfully.

Only 12 per cent of entrepreneurs in the country follow ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) quality standards, which is far too few, so these innovations are making no impact on export markets.

Dr Md Abdus Salam, chairman of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), told Jagonews24: "Work is now under way to put the technologies and research into practice. Research on preparing exportable products is being strengthened."

He said the government has begun creating entrepreneurs by lending at 2 per cent interest through the Entrepreneurship Support Fund (ESF). "There are also initiatives for supporting research for large industrial companies," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.