By Fanuel Msiska, LCC4

As MUST continues to equip students with innovative ideas, four final year Manufacturing Engineering students have developed a tomato paste concentrator using locally available materials.

The team consists of Victor Mtanga, Timothy Kaunda, Emmanuel Mkili and Felix Nabwenje.

Their innovation responds directly to one of Malawi's most persistent agricultural challenges. The country produces approximately 600,000 metric tonnes of tomatoes annually, a figure projected to rise to 900,000 metric tonnes by 2026.

Yet more than 40% of the tomato harvest is lost to spoilage, largely due to the crop's high water content of 94-96% and absence of affordable preservation technology.

The machine by the students tackles this problem head-on by heating the tomatoes and drawing out the water, leaving behind a thick paste that can be stored for months.

By tackling this gap, the concentrator offers small and medium-scale farmers a practical and low-cost route into agro-processing.

Speaking about the project, Mtanga said the innovation was designed with ordinary farmers in mind.

"Our innovation provides an affordable solution for preserving tomatoes, allowing farmers to reduce losses during peak seasons," he said.

"By converting raw tomatoes into paste, we enable them to have a product that can be used as a substitute in cooking throughout the year."

The project gained recognition and won multiple awards during the MUST 2026 Engineering Symposium, such as Best in Manufacturing Engineering, third place in Most Innovative Project and second runner-up on the MI Technology and Innovation award list.

Beyond reducing waste, the innovation aligns closely with Malawi 2063, which prioritises agricultural commercialisation, food security and industrialisation.

The students are working to transition their prototype into finished product suitable for farming communities.

To this end, they are actively pursuing partnerships to facilitate the next stages of their project.