What is Plantain Flour

Unique- Plantain flour is a fresh, superior tasting, healthy alternative to wheat flour and other gluten free flours currently in the market today. Ideally consumed uncooked, in smoothies for its full health benefit.

The process- Making Plantain flour is simply gathering unripe green Plantain bananas before any sugar content has developed and peeling, slicing, drying using specially designed equipment and methods, before milling and packaging.

Taste- Green plantains are virtually flavorless. Plantain flour has an earthy wholesome natural taste.

Color- Plantain flour has an off white, beige color.

Health Benefits

Resistant starch- Plantain banana flour is one of the very few foods containing RS2, an important form of resistant starch.

Potassium- plantain flour contains 12 bananas worth of potassium in every pound of plantain flour.

All Natural– Plantain banana flour is full of natural vitamins and minerals. Made from 100% organic green plantains, no additives, preservatives, chemicals or dyes.

The Story of the Project

Timor Growers was established as a local East Timorese organisation, with the mission to have an impact on the growth of multiple communities and improve the lives of the Timorese people, through our projects, products and development.

Plantain flour is an emerging worldwide as a highly desirable health product and raw food ingredient. With the worlds highest levels of resistant starch found in raw plantains and health benefits for the digestive system in particular gut health, it is quickly gaining in popularity. Plantains however are only found in the tropics, with most cultures using them only for cooking which unfortunately due to high temperature, removes most of their health benefits.

We found that Plantain Banana trees grow wild and in abundance all over Timor Leste, and can be found in almost every home plot in the districts and on many plantations and farms. Up until now these have not been profitable crops.

Our aim, and with your help, is to empower farmers and families in all districts where plantain bananas grow with our training and guidance, to produce plantain flour, to sell locally and export globally. Providing a new cash flow crop for the Timorese, and contributing to their economic growth.

We have designed and hope to build a ‘state of the art’ mobile dehydrator which will be able to produce 500kg of Plantain Flour per day on location and within hours of harvest. Being fully mobile will allow us to visit multiple communities in a short period of time spreading the production around Timor and benefiting as many Timorese as possible while providing much needed ‘on the spot’ cash flow.

Timor Growers along with hep from the East Timorese government and other NGO’s will then continue to promote and develop a local and international export market, ensuring demand is maintained and families continue to make cash flow all year round. This is extremely important to us as plantains are an all year crop and we want to provide income to families in the dry months, once the coffee season is over.

We have spent the last six months developing relationships with small scale farmers and families throughout most districts of East Timor. For the majority of who, Plantain bananas are a commonly growing and often unused crop, with an excess amount of the bananas going to waste each year.

Why Chuffed.

We need your support to help us fund production, shipping, packaging and delivery of our first large scale shipment to bring the product to you and to meet the growing demand for a new export product.

How the funds will be used:

Any funds we receive will be distributed into the following areas:

• mobile drying trailer to travel to districts and process on location
• the first production of 2 tons (2000kg) of plantain flour, including shipping
• currency conversion to USD
• building additional buildings for food quality production
• training and labor
• transportation and purchase of plantain bananas from many families around Timor

Rewards

As well as the existing international demand for plantain flour from overseas buyers, we have been working closely with a soon to be launched Australian health brand – who will be able to deliver discounted resistant starch products to all of our supporters.

Challenges

We have done a lot of preparation to make sure that we can make this project and industry succeed. This includes having one of our members in Timor for most of the year, on the ground and living amongst communities we work with, so we are always adapting and understanding what is needed as well as providing the necessary support.

Quality – As we are producing this product in a developing country. In order to ensure the quality of the product and its facilities we have taken appropriate measures and will need to arrange inspections, certifications and consistent monitoring so that we can ensure the superiority of every shipment.

No waste

Another extremely exciting part of this industry will be that we have found bi-product industries which will leave no waste, a new company in Timor Leste will be using all cut banana trunks once we have collected the fruit and recycle them into paper and cardboard for packaging. We have also arranged for all the banana peels to be collected and used as animal feed as they are extremely nutritious.

www.facebook.com/timorgrowers

www.timorgrowers.com

Source: Icrowdnewswire