Leveling up a juice facility in Burundi
It was clear that the Centre de Formation Rurale in Giheta, Burundi, had great potential when I visited in 2023. This area of Burundi, a small country in southeastern Africa, is blessed with fertile soil, warm weather, and two rainy seasons, making it perfect for pineapples, berries, mangoes, and farming in general.
But in 2023, the cooperative didn’t have official certification and hadn’t been able to sell their products commercially for the past 15 years. Stopping them from getting the certification was two things: (1) their building needed repairs and upgrades for sanitation, and (2) they needed more glass bottles. Glass bottles weren’t available in Burundi and could only be obtained by importing them from Tanzania, making them prohibitively expensive.
The Centre is a project of the Brothers of St. Joseph, a Catholic order particularly aligned with workers – Joseph was a carpenter, after all – and it is run by an independent cooperative, with 18 members and student interns (90 this year!) who come to learn about the agribusiness of making juice and wine.
It felt like their potential was ready to be released, and a $2,000 Spirit in Action grant in 2024 helped the cooperative renovate their building, adding a tiled sink for washing fruit, reroofing with new iron sheets, and laying floor tiles. With these improvements, they got official certification from the Burundi Bureau of Standards, giving them the green light to expand their operations and sell their products to hotels, restaurants, and the general public.
Top: the Centre de Formation Rurale with their old, rusty roof; Bottom: the new roof being installed with support from SIA
The ripple of impact
Have you heard the adage that one grant brings more grants? The renovations and certification from SIA’s small grant increased the Centre's visibility and credibility, drawing the attention of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which granted them steel countertops and 20,000 glass bottles!
Pineapple wine production! Look closely, and you can see the difference between before and after the new tile floor was laid.
Back in Business
With that support from the FAO, along with SIA’s support and the energy of the cooperative employees, the Centre entered a new stage of thriving and community impact. They signed mutually beneficial contracts with farmers’ cooperatives in the area, promising to buy their fruit harvest at a good price. This gives the farmers some security and ensures the Centre has enough raw material to make quality products year-round.
The community impact is significant. In the first half of 2025, the Centre estimated that they served 6,524 people, either directly or indirectly, including cooperative members, partner farmers, student interns, consumers of their tasty products, as well as traders and suppliers involved in their value chain. Before the facility was in full operation, families used to come to the Brothers to ask them to pay their children’s school fees. “That doesn’t happen anymore,” said Brother Silas, who helps mentor the Centre’s cooperative.
Meeting with the factory and farmer cooperative members in Giheta, Burundi in August 2026.
Seeing the Centre in Action
When the SIA African Advisory Board, North American Board Member Amber Picou, and I visited the Centre in August, we were all impressed with the clean, active, and productive facility. It was pineapple season, and so pineapples were waiting to be weighed, washed, and processed. We also saw the big kettles (heated by wood fires) used to sterilize the bottles, and watched the workers then fill the bottles, cap them, water-bath the bottles, and then bring them to the cool storage room. When the Brothers invited us to lunch, we enjoyed sampling the pineapple juice and berry wine.
After the meal, Brother Silas shared his gratitude. “This Centre brings joy. People in the area have talents and abilities, and SIA has allowed them to come out. With this funding and partnership from SIA, people know that they are capable of changing their conditions and that they are not alone.”
Left: Passion fruit juice is popular in Burundi, and one of my favorites!
Right: SIA African Advisory Board Member Naomi from Uganda with Cooperative members Raissa and Gerald in the wine cave.
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