How Understanding Local Challenges and Opportunities

Influenced the Design of Post-Harvesting Technology in Haiti

Camille George, USTDave Elton, CTI

Hank Garwick, CTIGeorge Ewing, CTI

NCIIA Washington, DC March 25, 2011

Outline

• Increase food security in Haiti• Opportunity to develop new post-harvest

technology for plentiful natural resource• Collaboration partners• Theory of Diffusion of Innovation• Evolution of technology, recipes and target

market• Insights and next steps

200 fruitsper tree

Breadfruit

Nutritious

Plentiful Grows uncultivated

Very small commercial market

Breadfruit has no shelf life

Most breadfruit rots

Over 120 species of breadfruit worldwide

Republic of the Marshall Islands 2007

Opportunity

Proactively seek the appropriate technology to increase the

AvailabilityAccessUse

of this underutilized natural resource

(World Food Summit 1996; three pillars of food security)

Challenge

CTI : NGO founded in 1981 by a group of missionaries, research engineers, and food scientists

Mission: create post harvest technologies that are safe, affordable, respect the environment, require little or no fuel and electricity, and are compatible with the culture of the users

Responded to Haitian request

Collaboration

UST: committed to educational experiences that develop both cognitive and affective domains

Mission: Educate students to advance the common good; Secure a sustainable & just world

Value: Transformative Experiences

(Service learning, Study Abroad, Multi-disciplinary projects)

Discontinuous Innovation: A new product

Breadfruit flour increases shelf lifeCan it be realistically processed?

Post-harvest processingRecipes

Adoption

Transdisciplinary Lens

Theory of diffusion of innovationA framework to help understand

1. The innovation2. Its communication3. In a social system

4. Over a period of time

Diffusion theory

• Definable characteristics of innovation which affect adoption

• Communication processes in a social system affect adoption

• Stages of adoption• Categories of human personalities

TechnologyFlour & food science

Next Steps

Systems Approach

• Making the flour requires: harvesting, washing, cutting, peeling, coring, shredding, drying, grinding

• The technology has to work in the environment of the user at an economic profit

Processing

Breadfruit needs to be shredded and dried, and then ground into a flour

19

Vertical Shredder

St. Vincent 2004

Small business ownersFarmer coops

Shredding

• Most likely user small business owner

• Versatile shredder to use with other produce

• St. Vincent: food safe surfaces

• Noted technical issues• What would I do with

the flour?

Tommie Shredder

DFMA

Design for Manufacture and Assembly

Results:

Haiti

• Awkward mounting• Hard to shred• Didn’t like the

weight• Want one person

operation• Make it stronger

Shredder Saga

Marshall Islands

• Want one person operation

• Food safe • Looks shabby• More robust • Can I make pancakes?• Skeptical that it will dry• Will the flour rehydrate?

Horizontal Shredder

Elton Shredder

Haiti

3rd Party Testing

Vertical• Awkward mounting• Batch process• Two person operation• Tiresome• Shreds fall downward

Horizontal• Good mounting• Continuous operation• Two person operation• Wheel well received• Counter-intuitive

direction• Shreds fly sideways• Too many parts

Tool & Die to make the Blade

Flywheel

ONE TON SHREDDED IN LES CAYES AREA - 2009

Group of 10 farmer-enterprises that have registered with the

Ministry of Commerce

Societe Antillaise de Transformation Agroalimentaire in Haiti (SATAG)

Flour

Household or Commercial Use?

Flour

Household Product• Samosas (Hush Puppies)• Pasta

• Taste tests in Haitian Schools & Churches• Failures- pancakes, cookies, familiar foods

Flour

Commercial Product• Extruded puff• Test tests done with sweet and savory versions• Haitian kids love the snacks• 60% daily nutrition needs

Breadfruit Puffs

• Made puffs in Illinois• Can be made in Port-au-

Prince, Dominican Republic or Jamaica

• SATAG would like to make this in Les Cayes

• Haitian driven effort ($0.30/lb of bf flour

price point)

Nutritious

• Peanut butter• Cinnamon/Sugar• Spicy/Savory• Different Shapes• Breakfast food• Snack

Post Earthquake

• Feeding centers want local foods• Agro-forest Regional Nursery Foundation of

Haiti (ARN) & Breadfruit Institute of Hawaii have 30 year plan to plant trees in Haiti

• ARN ready to provide bf-flour to Archaie region

Next Steps

Breadfruit Enterprise Architecture Demonstration (BrEAD)

Pilot enterprise for two markets:– Collaboration with ARN

• Feeding stations (Hush Puppy Recipe)– Collaboration with SATAG

• Extrusion run (Nutritious Snack)

Collaborators

• Societe Antillaise de Transformation Agroalimentaire in Haiti (SATAG)

• Agro-forest Regional Nursery Foundation of Haiti (ARN)

• University of the Nouvelle Grand’Anse (Jeremie)

• Codeha-Corde-Enfant Haitien (CODEHA)• Northwest Haiti Christian Mission

Insights

• Must be robust, devices made to last (not always lowest cost)• Food processing safety • Food scaling for economics• Familiar food vs new food• Need advocacy team (more than technical

folks)

Students

• Engineering Senior Design (3 teams)

• Adv French• Communications• MBA team• Manufacturing Masters• Manufacturing

undergrad project

• Systems Engineering Masters Course

(5 teams)• SWE club• ESW club• Independent research

projects• Freshman CAD project• Rapid Prototype

Research

Thank You(Larry Mathews, 3M Ideas in Innovation,

Hennepin Methodist Church in Minneapolis, CTI donor base, General Mills, American Extrusion Personnel)