After a long career in international trade and finance in banking, Syed Aminul Kabir moved into agro-industry in 2020. His question was why, in a farming country, so little value is added to farm produce and why marginal farmers get so little for their crops. The answer he built is Star Agro Processing Industries at the BSCIC industrial estate in Moulvibazar, which makes ginger, garlic and onion powder.

Bangladeshi kitchens use fresh or ground spice paste, but the food processing industry has developed a large appetite for powdered spices made to precise specifications — for meat and biryani masalas, chanachur and chips, where flavour and quality must be identical batch after batch. Star Agro went into large-scale commercial production in late 2021. Ginger, garlic and onion absorb moisture from the air quickly, so holding standards through drying, grinding and storage was the hard part; the company gradually developed its own processes and quality control until it could meet buyers' specifications.

Marginal farmers are the base of its supply. Through contract farming, growers are taught to raise and harvest ginger and garlic to processing standards, which also lets the company trace each lot to the field it came from. Not everything is available locally, though: the white onion that processed foods need for flavour is not grown in Bangladesh and must be imported from India. The company also imports coconut copra from India and Indonesia to make virgin and RBD coconut oil for the edible-oil and cosmetics trade.

Strict control of microbiological quality, moisture, packaging and hygiene has made Star Agro a trusted business-to-business supplier to the country's leading food processors and FMCG brands, whose names Aminul Kabir declines to disclose out of respect for their confidentiality. Negotiations and technical preparation for an agreement with Ajinomoto, the Japanese multinational food maker, are now almost complete; meeting its standards on food safety, traceability and documentation is bringing the plant up to world class.

Infrastructure drags on the business. Foreign buyers who inspect the factory come away satisfied but are reluctant to place export orders because of the estate's dilapidated roads. With no gas connection, the plant runs on costlier LPG cylinders, and frequent power cuts disrupt production — a problem the company has partly solved by installing its own solar system, which now supplies a large share of its electricity. Poor waste management and slow licence renewals add to the obstacles.

Now working towards ISO 22000:2018 and halal certification, Star Agro has drawn up a five-year road map to enter international markets directly. The aim is to turn the ginger and garlic that Bangladeshi farmers grow into high-value powdered spice at home rather than sell it raw — cutting import dependence and giving marginal growers a permanent, assured outlet for their crops.

Source: Prothom Alo