In November I had the privilege of working again with the folks who manage SOYNICA’s soy and green leaf foods processing and marketing business, Casa Nutrem. It’s a pleasure and honor to work with people who are dedicated to assisting economically disenfranchised families to improve their living conditions, and at the same time expand community-wide access to highly nutritious low-cost natural foods.

In March we had done an assessment of equipment that was needed to help this women-led nonprofit organization improve and increase production of soymilk and related products. SOYNICA sent $30,000. of their own funds to Plenty and I located and purchased the equipment including an additional cooker, a hydraulic milk extractor, three sanitary milk pumps with connecting tubing, a plate heat exchanger for quickly cooling the milk, a refrigerated bulk milk tank, a semi-automatic filling machine and walk-in cooler. The equipment was shipped to Managua (the capital of Nicaragua) from Houston.

After the equipment arrived in Nicaragua, I traveled to Managua where I worked with Casa Nutrem staff and local technicians in setting up the new soymilk processing line, which allows them to increase production from 1,000 to 2,000 1/2 liter packages of soymilk per shift. The equipment will vastly improve Casa Nutrem staff’s ability to extend the shelf life of the milk and okara by-products, and eliminate the heavy lifting of product from one part of the processing operation to the other.

In 2005 Plenty representatives will return to support SOYNICA’s efforts to complete a second phase of upgrading the equipment line at Casa Nutrem and begin to set up a second, smaller soy food processing and marketing business with women in another town.

CAFSI: Guatemala

In other CAFSI news: Over the past year Plenty has provided more than $8,000 to ADIBE (the Cakchiquel Mayan Soyfoods production facility in Guatemala) to upgrade their San Bartolo facility (new floor and roof), to purchase soybeans and to open a soyfoods retail outlet in the near-by town of Panajachel on the shores of Lake Atitlan. Plans are in place to provide ADIBE with some new equipment and continuing technical support by visiting Plenty soy technicians in 2005. Technical assistance will also be provided to UPAVIM, the women’s cooperative in Guatemala City, for their soyfoods production operation sometime in the next few months.

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