According to the Cuban station Rebel Radio, In Cienfuegos, a cassava flour production plant valued at around one hundred thousand euros has just come into operation. Located in the Antonio Maceo Cooperative, belonging to the Horquita Agricultural Company, in the municipality of Abreus, it is the first of its kind in Cuba.
The entity has the Sanitary License granted by specialists from the Cienfuegos Public Health Directorate, necessary to work and sell the product thanks to a new technology imported from Colombia.
According to the Director of the Cooperative, Modesto Rodríguez Rodríguez, the first flour produced by the plant was delivered to the Abreus Municipal Bread Company. «To make the bread,” he said, “they use 30% cassava flour and 70% wheat flour. We do other tests with self-employed workers in the territory, who make pizzas and sweets.
He also said that on May 4 they will hold a workshop in Abreus on the use of cassava flour, coordinated with the Food Industry Institute, the financiers of this foreign collaboration (the Peace Project) and the Agricultural and Forestry Technical Institute.
Rodríguez stressed that different varieties of cassava were analyzed and that through trials it was verified which varieties gave better industrial results. There is the 80+1 and the Y-4, with good yields. He highlighted that they use about 3.8 tons of fresh cassava to obtain a ton of flour for human consumption.
Finally, he expressed that they wanted to “show Cuba and the rest of the municipalities how much we can do with cassava. The country’s intention is that in each municipality there is a processing plant for this flour to replace 30% of imported wheat flour.
In the process, he said, the mills are also capable of separating the flour from the cassava husk and other remains, the latter destined as animal feed, especially pigs and poultry.
