Ready-made meals and dietary fibres from Novarino-
Innovations for the Tunisian food industry

In Tunisia, demand is growing for ready-made meals that can be prepared using a microwave oven. So far, there are no relevant Tunisian suppliers of ready-made meals that meet the new local nutritional habits. Potential buyers of the meals are private households, catering companies, airlines, canteens, public authorities, the police, the armed forces, and refugee shelters.

Dietary fibres for the food industry, which can be used in the production of bread, for example, are another market niche. In Tunisia, bread is an important staple food. However, it usually has only a low content of fibre. Increasing the amount of fibre would have positive health effects and extend the shelf life of the bread.

Our partner in this project, Novarino, is a Tunisian company founded in 2006. It produces baked goods, pastry, desserts, and cake mixes that are sold in Tunisia, but also in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The products have a long shelf life and are consumed especially during Ramadan. Thanks to the support of Invest for Jobs, Novarino will realise two projects: Firstly, production facilities for ready-made meals and secondly, the facilities and structures needed for the production and marketing of dietary fibres for the food industry. A win-win situation to seize a business opportunity and create jobs.

The new ready-made meals will pick up local food traditions and will be sold to private households, catering companies, canteens, and institutional buyers. They are manufactured using locally sourced ingredients, thereby further strengthening value chains in the country. Even unrefrigerated, the dishes will have a long shelf life. To make them, Novarino will set up a subsidiary called Foody. Foody will create 99 new and good jobs, and it is expected that more jobs will be created by suppliers.

Novafibre, another new subsidiary of Novarino, takes over the production of insoluble dietary fibres intended for further use by the food industry. The fibres are obtained from agricultural by-products and waste, for example from the processing of figs, tomatoes, and olives. As a result, the project will have a particularly favourable environmental balance. The production of the dietary fibres takes place in the economically weak region of Ghezala. Two years after completion of the investment phase, around 1,600 tonnes of dietary fibres are to be produced and marketed annually. Novafibre will create 79 good and new jobs, supplemented by other jobs that may be created by suppliers because of this project.

The funds of Investing for Employment will be used mainly to purchase the machinery needed to set up the production of ready-made meals and dietary fibres. In both production branches, about half of the newly created jobs will be filled with women. In order to meet the requirements of modern manufacturing processes, mainly people with completed vocational qualifications will be hired.

Novarino will invest 4.31 million euros to set up the two subsidiaries Foody and Novafibre. The Facility Investing for Employment GmbH grants a subsidy of 1.07 million euros. This corresponds to 25% of the investment budget.

The Facility Investing for Employment (IFE) of KfW Development Bank is part of the Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition" of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). With its support, the facility wants to remove barriers that prevent the creation of new and better jobs in the private sector.