Madagascar grows far more lychee than it can export, and freeze-drying overcomes the constraint. The country grows ~100k tonnes a year but exports only ~20k, limited by capacity at the port of Tamatave. The rest is sold cheaply or wasted. Freeze-drying overcomes the logistical constraint by turning perishable fruit into a lightweight, shelf-stable product: via sublimation, it pulls the water out while preserving flavor, structure, and nutrition for years.
We don't intend to stop at lychee. Madagascar has many tropical fruits that can be processed the same way. More importantly, a freeze-dried fruit firm develops know-how and an industrial ecosystem (consistent power, vacuum management) that other advanced agroprocessing techniques also require.
Our initial estimates suggest that cheap farmgate lychee prices and low labor costs plausibly give us a cost advantage over China at scale, by offsetting higher energy and machinery costs. Profitability is also encouraging given freeze-dried lychee sells at wholesale prices of $20-40/kg with branded retail prices several times higher, while sitting within a freeze-dried fruit market growing ~6-10% annually.
Our founder is colocating with an established fruit processor and exporter ahead of the lychee season in late 2026. Year one is based on the island of Nosy Be, with a possible move to a location with better logistics the following year.
The Founder
We are incubating 1-2 people to found and own Madagascar's first freeze-dried fruit company, becoming an anchor for a new industry. The founders will launch and own an anchor firm, with lychees as a flagship product to leverage favorable unit economics. The plan is to buy B-grade and missized lychee wholesale, freeze it, hold it in cold storage, and run batches through an industrial freeze dryer across the year.