Fahad Awadh is the founder of YYTZ Agro-Processing, a cashew processing company that is adding value locally while creating jobs and boosting the income of farmers and the community as a whole.
Fahad started off his education in St. Christopher’s, a private British school in Bahrain, where he lived with his family for 8 years. His family moved to Canada later on when he was 10.
While in Canada, Fahad was accepted into an International Business and Technology program at the age of 11. It was a foundational experience that instilled and nurtured in him an entrepreneurial spirit.
At such a young age, Fahad had started learning about Accounting, Business Marketing, and Entrepreneurial. By the age of 12, he had created a business with a product and was selling at the District School Board.
Fahad went on to study Business Marketing at York University. His entrepreneurial spirit was stirred and he started making t-shirts with two friends, Lavado Stubbs and Momarr Taal (recently named in Forbes Africa 30 under 30) while in university.
The company’s flagship processing facility in Zanzibar has an installed capacity of 2,500 Tons per annum. Last year, YYTZ Agro-Processing raised a $500,000 investment from the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund to establish another processing facility in Mtwara, southeastern Tanzania.
He founded YYTZ Agro-Processing, a cashew processing company that is not only solving Tanzania’s cashew nuts processing problems but also adding value locally as he creates jobs and boosts the income of farmers and the community as a whole.
However, the country lacks processing facilities and capacity building needed to grow. Fahad took it upon himself to create local processing for this valuable commodity and growing it back into what it used to be, an important foreign exchange earner for the country.
Fahad’s business is the definition of using one stone to kill multiple birds. Fahad Awadh is resuscitating the cashew industry in Tanzania and ensuring that the farmers have their lives changed for better.
He plans to take his business beyond Tanzania, to the rest Africa in other to impact as many as possible.
