Solar Fruit Dehydrators for MicroEntrepreneurs

Batz Kuxya Women's Dehydrator Cooperative is open for business! Thanks to you, we've made fast progress with weekly meetings to set up the cooperative's administrative structure, internal processes, production, and sales.

The cooperative now has a viable product ready for the market. They are creating sales schedules for each member to serve in both produciton and sales on a weekly basis, creating paid work where they never had it before. Even better, they are their own bosses!

This month we've been perfecting the packaging of our products - herbal teas and dried cookies - to send the right message about who we are as a cooperative. The cooperative decided to use biodegradable plastic to send the consistent environmental message between their permaculture farms and their sun dried products.

Last week, Ruslan, a robotics engineer from California, volunteered with Batz Kuxya to test and measure the solar dehydrator's performance. He showed the cooperative members how to find the best drying sections, noting that the corners or the edges may experience less airflow than the center. These comments helped the group consider standardization of their product and how to optimize it.

Next year we will be inviting Guatemalan university students to work with the cooperative in developing their business plan by focusing on their sales and marketing strategy.

Stay tuned as we progress!