History of the company
1995
The founder of WAD, Patrick Deegbe a crop scientist and Christiane Deegbe a nurse got to know the village of Tubaman–Weija in 1995 through a vegetable project they carried out. They realised an important logistics problem. The project was carried out at the Weija Irrigation Company site.
2000
They sent agricultural materials and put in place a farmer’s cooperative in Tubman-Weija. A company was created called Weija Agriculture Development (WAD) to manage the materials and the cooperative with the aim of helping the cooperative to diversify their production and export part of the produce.
2001
They got to know the Village of Ekumfi Atwia and brought some sugarloaf pineapples from the village to Switzerland. In Switzerland, people normally complain they don’t get good exotic fruits like the tasted whilst on holidays. We took it as a duty to give the taste of exotic fruit as if you are in the country of origin.
The company therefore started exporting sugarloaf pineapples to Switzerland.
Since sugarloaf pineapple was new at that time, a Brazilian friend gave it the name « Patrick’s pineapple » this is because as he said at the time "in future others would like to do the same thing as we are doing but if the pineapple is not from Patrick and then it’s not the original". We laughed over it and adopted the name.
2003
The company moved from Tubaman – Weija to the Ghana Industrial Commercial Estate (GICEL) also in Weija. It added mangoes and papaya to its fresh export.
A small household dryer was sent to Ghana to experiment on drying as fruits were not dried at that time. A proto-type dryer was built in Ghana to start drying some of its fruit.
2004
The company and its farmers group at Ekumfi got certified organic by IMO Switzerland. The company collaborated with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation on a project: Alleviating poverty in West and Central Africa through the export of Organic and Fair-trade products.
The company grew in its export volume of both fresh and dry organic fruits from there.
2005
The company change its name to Wad African Foods limited as its activities is not only related to Weija.
WAD's activities have been extended to the following districts:
- Ekumfi in the central region of Ghana for pineapple
- Somanya for mangoes
- Kwanyako for coconut and papaya
2012
The company build its processing facility within the GICEL yard and moved to its current location within the GICEL yard.
The company own its own farms at Somanya, Krodua and Botoku to supplement what our partner farmers produce.
