Market Potential: Egypt already exports a significant amount of its crops, especially to the Gulf and Europe, and this facility will improve access for local farmers to these markets, and possibly open new markets in Africa.
Target market size is estimated at USD 159m.
Year 1 revenues for this facility are expected be around USD 7 million, with a net margin of 7%, at 50% operational capacity. This improves by Year 5 to USD 17 million, with a net margin of 10%, at 91% operational capacity.

Supply: If the facility is operating at 100% capacity, it will consume the following amounts of crop per year:
• 5,000 tons of fresh tomatoes
• 2,500 tons of fresh grapes
• 3,750 tons of fresh grapes

Process: The facility uses industry standard pack house equipment to receive fresh produce for quality inspection, washed, sorted, treated and packed in different ways according to client/market needs.
The packing process consists of the following steps, with minimal variations depending on the crop being handled:
1. Receiving raw material
2. Washing
3. Grading, Sizing & Sorting
4. Waxing (for mangoes)
5. Packing
6. Ripening (for tomatoes)
7. SO2 fumigation (for grapes)
8. Palletization
9. Cooling

Human Resources: Position # of Staff
Management
CEO 1
Production - Permanent
Plant Manager 1
Quality Control 2
Hall Supervisors 2
Engineering 1
Workers 2
Production – Seasonal
10 workers x 3 seasons 30
Sales, General and Administration
Procurement 2
Sales Manager 1
Sales 2
Marketing 2
Finance & Accounting 2
HR Manager 1
Maintenance 4
Security 2
Total 55

Financial: Capital Expenditure Requirements EGP 16m
Working Capital Requirements for 3 months EGP 29m
Minimum Investment Required EGP 45m
Business Internal Rate of Return 39%
Simple Payback 4.3 yrs
Profitability Index 2.61

Risk: The packing facility is not new to Luxor. For this facility to run successfully and be fully utilized, there has to be suitable logistics for transporting the freshly packed produce to shipping ports. Crops being transported for export need to be well refrigerated. This can be solved by either including a fleet of refrigerated trucks, but that will increase CAPEX, or outsourcing to a specialized company.
Post-harvest techniques are also key to maintain a steady supply of export-grade crops. Capacity building in that aspect is required to make sure supplies coming into the facility mostly pass quality control tests.

IMPACT: Economic - Value added to local crops such as tomato and mangoes is quite significant. Based on this study’s assumptions, before deducting other COGS (cost of goods sold) and overheads:
• 1 kg of export-grade fresh tomatoes cost EGP 4 sold at EGP 18 (USD 1) – that is 78% value added to the crop.
• 1kg of export-grade grapes cost EGP 10 sold at EGP 30 (USD 1.8) – that is 69% value added to the crop.
• 1kg of export-grade mangoes cost EGP 16 sold at EGP 30 (USD 1.7) – that is 47% value added to the crop.
Social - Direct jobs created by this facility will include 25 permanent plant staff plus another 30 seasonal workers. Indirect jobs created will be mainly in logistics, marketing and distribution, and increased dedicated farming to supply the plant over time.
Environmental – Decreased losses post-harvest, demand for raw materials for export can reduce oversupply and improve quality of harvest.