The Ugandan UK Convention’s organising team is pleased to welcome PIBID (Presidential initiative for Banana Industrial Development) as its new exhibitor.
PIBID is a pilot project of the Government of Uganda which produces commercially Tooke flour, Tooke offers a way to extend the shelf life of bananas and if it takes off, Uganda could soon be exporting much more of the fruit. Made with matooke usually wasted because of lack of storage facilities, tooke flour can be used in recipes in place of wheat or whole wheat flour
About PIBID
PIBID is a pilot project of the Government of Uganda whose vision is to apply state-of-the-art processing technology to produce value-added matooke products with competitive market strength both locally and globally.
PIBID whose underlying theory of change is that rural farmers with access to science led-processing and value addition enterprises under patronage of H.E. the President of the Republic of Uganda will be able to rapidly access profitable market chains that supply local, regional and international markets resulting in increased household income.
It is modelled around a rural Technology Business Incubator (TBI) and an Industrial Technology Park (ITP), models that have helped to transform economies in Europe, America and Asia.
These enhance success of early stages of technology transfer and diffusion, and entrepreneurship among entrepreneurs, researchers & academics.
The flour is the brainchild of Florence Isabirye Muranga, director of the president’s banana initiative and a part-time church minister, who has been researching matooke for 19 years.
Living abroad in Germany, Muranga first started wondering about new ways to use the banana after she noticed the number of derivative products produced from European staple crops like potatoes.
“I saw that we were sleeping with (the potential of) our food,” Muranga said. “Potato is not only potato it is instant potato; it is soups; it is sauces.” Muranga and researchers spent several years refining the process for making the flour, in which the matooke is first dried in a special steam dryer and then ground into flour using a mill.
