Over the last 5 years, we have run Nigeria's largest active tomato farm in Kaduna, produced 7 Bn tomatoes, with yield 7x above national yield average. Now we are set to build our processing factory in Kaduna to produce 10% of Nigeria's tomato paste demand.
We are TOMATO JOS
Exciting news! This week TJ will produce a batch of tomato paste as we test equipment in advance of the 2020 season. We don’t yet have our brand finalized, so we will sell paste in 25kg buckets & 250kg drums
Each bucket goes for 7.5K
Pls email sales
@tomatojos
.net 4 more info ❤️
As we start product testing, we‘ve realized we have a unique problem: our tomatoes are so red that they make our paste much brighter than what’s currently sold in the market! The dark red color that Nigerians are used to comes from oxidization (exposure to oxygen) and age.
Today, we celebrated our tomato factory ground-breaking with the Kaduna State Government for creating a warm, investment-friendly destination and the CBN for its visionary support for entrepreneurial agriculture & capacity development.
We have now finished entering & analyzing the data from our most recent tomato season, & we thought our friends and supporters might want to see how we did! The following excerpts from a larger document explain our recent results, how we support farmers, & what’s coming next.🥫😉
We’ve heard that some other tomato companies are setting up greenhouses as nurseries in northern Nigeria, so we thought it might be beneficial to explain and share our own process too! Tomato Jos has been using this system for 5 years 😊
Step 1: de-clump your potting substrate.
Tomato season is just around the corner! 🍅🍅🍅 Here at TJ we are busy sewing seeds, building seedling benches for our new (locally constructed!) greenhouse, and of course constructing the tomato processing facility! We’re working to document all the growth, too 😅
In addition to our standard 🍅tomato🍅 cultivation, we decided to conduct a small 🌻sunflower🌻 trial this season. The flowers are beginning to head and in the next month, we should be able to harvest them for our buyer. 💛🌻💛🌻
One of our woman farmers, Aisha Mohammed, grew 1.7 tons of maize on a 0.2 hectare plot! That’s an equivalent of 8.5 tons per hectare. Many of our women this season were ridiculed by their communities, sometimes even by their husbands, for attempting to farm. 1/
Earlier this week, we sent two baskets of tomatoes to our “big sister” company FMN in Lagos so that they can help us develop our recipe. Turns out TJ tomatoes make good paste! We love the color 🍅🔴🥳
We have finally started threshing maize for our farmers. The first farmer was the Sarki (local chief) of Kangimi. He got more than 20 bags from a quarter of a hectare. This equates to a yield of over 8 MT/Ha!! There is God ohhh 🎉🎊🌽💰🤣
One of our woman farmers was so happy to work with us that she named her baby “Tomato Jos” when he was born! Here he is with our head extension officer Hannatu, and our CEO
@ShoutsAndMiras
. Please join us in wishing this baby all the best in life!
Today we employed over 70 causal laborers to assist our harvest! We pay by the crate (even though we sell in baskets!), and Sani from our agronomy team tallies each person’s work to make sure we know how much to pay to whom at the end.
Who wants to do some math this morning? Today’s lesson will be about transportation costs. We will evaluate whether or not it’s worth using a cold truck to ship our tomatoes to Mile 12 market in Lagos.
Issa thread!
We are still wrapping up our tomato harvest and collating that data, but thought our followers might be interested to see the year-on-year improvement in our model farmer program. Our average (mean) model farmer tomato yield shifted from 21.5 MT/Ha to to 46.0 MT/Ha! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
These two outgrower fields were transplanted at roughly the same time, but the field on the right looks much better. The plants are well established, with new and consistent growth. Can anyone guess what is driving the performance gap? 100 RTs and we will explain it for you! 😊😊
This morning, our nucleus farm team is gearing up for its largest harvest yet. We’re expecting to pull 25-30 tons of tomatoes out of the field over the next 2-3 days! Pictures will follow as the work gets underway 😊
The entire staff and management of Tomato Jos farming and Processing ltd wishes you a wonderful Birthday, may you live long & living & fulfilling your dreams to the fullness. In tomato Jos, it's always a celebration and we celebrate 🥂 with you
@ShoutsAndMiras
#teamtomatojos
Our smallholders has their first harvest yesterday! We think high acidity in their soil caused the plants to be less productive this season, but we are still waiting for more information and harvest data before we jump to conclusions. The color & size of the fruits look good! 🍅
Spotlight on Lazarus from the maintenance team, who made this tomato 🍅 sign for us yesterday! Over the past week, the maintenance team has built a staircase into a hillside, cleaned up all our roads, built the groundbreaking sandbox and so much more. Please clap for them! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Meanwhile, back in the greenhouse, things are startin’ to cook. 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱 We haven’t 100% resolved our variability issues with these little fellas, but overall the seedlings are much healthier than they were last year.
Someone asked why we still sell tomatoes in baskets instead of in crates, and we thought it was a good question. So:
Reason 1) Economics
1 basket holds 55-80kg. It costs ~300 naira new and 100-200 naira used (depending on the condition)
1 crates holds 25-30kg. It costs 1,800 new
Our first group of outgrower farmers is starting to transplant tomatoes today! Between now and Christmas, almost half a million seedlings will find new homes with our partner farmers. Good luck little fellas! 🌱🍀
Update: we have a final count. We harvested, sorted & capped 792 baskets. Another 300-400 will be done today. We didn’t hit our target (we didn’t want to split the harvest over 2 days), but we still more than doubled our previous best harvest. And we learned a lot for next week!
A week from now Insha’Allah this entire field will be transplanted and full of tomato seedlings. For now, the TJ irrigation team is working to level out the ditches that will feed each bed. Everything in the picture will be farmed and manages by our
#smallholder
farmers.
We have been buying manure at 2,500 per 100kg bag, inclusive of transport to our farm. This comes out to 25,000 or $70 per MT. By contrast, in the US, farmers pay about $3-5 per MT for manure! This highlights one more reason that the cost of farming is so high in Nigeria...
The weather is finally dry enough for the TJ “model farmers” (the farmers who rent land within our allocation) to start bagging their maize. Aisha Mohammed (in the selfie with
@ShoutsAndMiras
) got more than 21 bags on her quarter hectare plot. That’s a yield of 8.4 tons/Ha!
Today and every day, we celebrate the heartbeat of our organization – our incredible team! Happy Employee Appreciation Day to the amazing individuals ensuring we remain a world-class farm. Thank you for all you do!
The plants in our demonstration plot are looking pretty good! They were transplanted a few weeks ahead of the commercial farm, so that our farmers can practice weeding, chemical sprays and fertilizer application here first.
#SocEnt
#FarmersFirst
#Nigeria
This is our first season growing maize commercially - we are learning a lot and thought you all might like to learn too! So here goes. First of all, maize yields in Nigeria are very poor. Less than 2 tons per hectare! The global average is almost 6. 1/
🚨Y*I*E*L*D 🚨 U*P*D*A*T*E 🚨
Our farmers averaged 6.93 metric tons per hectare for maize this season! 🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽Their cost of production was about NGN60,000 per ton (inclusive of both their loan and non-loan costs). We move!!!
On this special day, we extend our warmest wishes to our visionary leader Mira Mehta, MD/CEO Tomato Jos
We celebrate her audacious spirit and unwavering strength which birthed Tomato Jos and we continue to stand strong.
For those of you who don’t follow us on instagram (ahem), here’s a sneak peak at one of our outgrower plots! This 3 hectare plot is being managed by 14 farmers. We will start harvesting in March, at which point we’ll be able to measure their yields...
Who can guess how many square meters our factory is in size? What are some of the different rooms/areas within the factory compound? Quote-tweet or reply with your guesses!
For many years, Tomato Jos has supplied fresh tomato fruits to major markets in Nigeria. There is a high chance that our tomato fruit has found its way to your kitchen. Today, we now have that awesome tomato fruit in sachets just for you.
#tomatojos
#withlovefromfarmtokitchen
Scenes from today’s harvest: though it’s difficult to enforce the adoption of PPE & hand washing for our casual laborers, we are committed to keeping our staff and community safe. Along with good hygiene, wide adoption of face covers is proven to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Team TJ hits the road! A subset of the farming team is en route to visit a large commercial farm this weekend. Wish us a safe journey and a good learning experience! 😊
When the tomato season’s in full swing, meetings take place in any available location - including the tractor! Thank you
@cenbank
for taking time to visit our site, meet with CEO
@shoutsandmiras
, and take stock of all our progress as we continue to push forward.
#OnwardAndUpward
We are drilling an industrial borehole at our farm in Kaduna & we’d like to work with a reputable company who can put in 8-inch casing (instead of the standard 5-inch). This means the company needs a 10-12 inch bit (not 8-inch).
Please email info
@teamtomatojos
.net and please RT!
Team TJ hits the road! A subset of the farming team is en route to visit a large commercial farm this weekend. Wish us a safe journey and a good learning experience! 😊
Our famers day event was a huge success, but first, our sincere apologies for not transmitting live. Here with
@ShoutsAndMiras
is our best tomato Female farmer, she made 70MT of tomato per hectare against the national average of 5MT per hectare.
@go_vegetables
@giz_gmbh
@USAID
Why settle for less when you can have the best?
Make your jollof, stew, and soup with Tomato Jos paste—the secret ingredient for tasty and memorable meals.
#memorable
#tomatojos
#meals
A rainstorm two nights ago knocked some tomatoes off the plants in our nucleus farm, but fortunately our sales manager was able to sell all the red fruit while our greenhouse team laid out the greens to ripen.
The closer we get to the rainy season, the more risk we take on!
The team was honored to host Her Excellency
@hadizel
and her distinguished friends at the farm today. Our guests met members of the sales, smallholder, community relations, and agronomy teams, and the Sarkin Kangimi even gifted HE one basket of tomatoes at the end of her visit!
Yesterday morning, the Tomato Joe smallholder team held a graduation ceremony for 24 farmers who have participated in our “model farm” program for the past 4 seasons, and who are now ready to become out growers on their own plots of land. What a celebration!
Every Tuesday, Josephine from HR conducts a Hausa lesson for our staff who can’t speak the language. During today’s lesson, everyone took turns pairing off and pretending to buy and sell different items in the market.
Na gode, Josephine! Sai Talata 😉
Normally, we sell peat moss to other farmers & greenhouses- but right now we need to buy! Our container was delayed in the port & our season is at risk. Please send an email to info
@tomatojos
.net if you have large quantities of peat moss (not coco peat) for sale. Please RT! 🌱🙏🏾
We are almost halfway through our tomato season! Still need to see a lot more vegetative growth before flowering sets in but we are happy with the way things are going so far.
Our week in pictures! Glamour shot of our maize, our extension officer Zichart with some women farmers, little TJ giving us his best duck face and a meeting with some men farmers - including one youth who used his tomato money to re-enroll in secondary school! How was your week?
It’s so rewarding to see the same people show up to work, with nicer clothes or new shoes and phones over the course of the season as their earnings add up. Crime rates have dropped in Kangimi and even in nearby Mararaban Jos, we think we can see higher value items in the market.
It's a world of possibilities with Tomato Jos.
Whether it's your favorite jollof, homemade stew, or more, Tomato Jos has all you need to make that special meal.
Share with us which of these mouthwatering meals has captured your appetite.
#TomatoJos
#NaijaJollof
#Naijafoodies
Mira Mehta
@ShoutsAndMiras
, founder of Kaduna-based Tomato Jos, has announced that the groundbreaking ceremony of their tomato processing factory is scheduled for 27 January 2020. Hers is one of the firms that tell the story of Kaduna as an investment destination
Out of the 1,200 trays that we seeded in mid-September, 150 survived. The good news is that our permanent greenhouses will be completed by the end of the week, so we will be able to reseed starting from next week. Cross your fingers for us!
We still haven’t planted our maize yet - nor have our farmers! We are waiting for a few dry days so we can use our new planters... Where in the country are you and what do you have in the ground already?
#plant19
After a LOT of miscommunication with the outgrowers, we have finally gotten to a place of good understanding. So far they have paid off
#2
.28m of their
#2
.33m loan (98% recovery rate!), and have harvested 62.5MT on 4 hectares. And they’re not done picking yet! 🍅
We’re halfway through the dry season and we’re experimenting on some parts of pure farm! Do you know what crop is pictured in the first photo? How about the tree on the right edge of the second photo?
#NotJustTomatoes
😉
After a few tractor and implement issues, we’re pleased to say that maize season has begun! We’re planting two different varieties and are excited to see which ends up yielding more. Here’s to a productive rainy season for all the farmers out there!
Scenes from yesterday’s outgrower harvest are below. We have now harvested twice on our 1Ha plot and our 3Ha plot. But - of course there is drama... 🙄 The farmers insisted that 45 of the 198 baskets harvested be sent to a new, untested market which increased transport costs. 1/
The annual Tomato Jos town hall is off to a running start! Sunny from the security team serenaded the group with a few songs, while MD
@ShoutsAndMiras
talked about the 5-year vision for the company. What will happen next? 🤔
Food inflation is serious problem in Nigeria right now! Tomato Jos aims to bring more stability to staple foods like tomato paste through improved farming methods and local value-add processing. 🍅❤️
From tractor assembly to factory construction to test driving a new forklift, team TJ really has their hands full this week. The maize is off the fields and ground prep for tomatoes will begin shortly... Here’s to another great season!
Today, Tomato Jos holds its 6th annual Farmers Field Day to celebrate the success of the farmers in our program, encourage new people to join, and express our plans and goals for the future.