Safe Processing in Cooperative Enterprises (SPICE)

Frontier Co-op is implementing activities in Sri Lanka, Guatemala, and India to demonstrate the power of value creation through food safety and farmer ownership. Our activities help our local partners capture additional value, stabilize incomes, and increase household livelihoods. In Sri Lanka, Frontier is working with SOFA to increase local processing capacity. Frontier is supporting agricultural extension services, providing training in cooperative management and governance, and providing Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)-compliant processing equipment to facilitate export of value-added, food safe, ready to eat spices. In Guatemala, Frontier is working with FEDECOVERA, a cooperative federation which aggregates organic cardamom, allspice, and turmeric from its member cooperatives. Frontier is helping to implement infrastructure upgrades that shift pasteurization, grinding, and sterile handling to FEDECOVERA’s local processing plant, enabling it to capture market share, as well as close to 20% of additional value on much of its product that can be reinvested into services and programs for members. In India, Frontier is working with YMT to create opportunities for value addition for small-scale tea farmers in India and Nepal. Frontier is providing technical expertise to YMT to help them establish a food-safe tea factory, including supporting training of factory employees, implementing food safety protocols required for export, and equipping the factory with food safe processing machinery.