Breadfruit Grinder

Abstract

Farmers in the Cooperative KGPB (Kolaborasyon Gwoupman Peyizan O’Boy) in Borgne, Haiti have identified breadfruit as one of the most wasted agricultural products in the area because it is hard to transport, store, and preserve. One problem for Haitian farmers in Bornge is that they lack the ability to store breadfruit for longer use. Breadfruit is also difficult to transport to market on the mountain goat paths, and everyone in the area harvests it at the same time, overwhelming the market. With so much breadfruit available at one time, the price drops, making transporting it not worth the effort. The goal of this project is to help the local people get through the hungry-season and make more profit by converting breadfruit into flour through several simple processes: shred, dry and grind. In flour form, it will be much easier for farmers to store and transport the product for future eating and selling. For this project, we would design and build a prototype food grinder that could be integrated with the shredding and drying systems under development by Multidisciplinary teams of students in a similar capstone course at RIT.