Every summer, Bangladesh’s orchards overflow with mangoes, jackfruits, pineapples and guavas. Yet long before much of this seasonal bounty reaches consumers, millions of tonnes of fruit begin to spoil, turning a season of abundance into one of staggering waste.
While farmers struggle to sell their harvest at fair prices, nearly half of the country’s jackfruit—and a significant portion of other fruits—is lost due to poor storage, weak processing capacity, and an underdeveloped value-addition industry.
Despite being one of the world’s largest fruit producers, the country continues to import processed fruit products while much of its own harvest are wasted, according to statistics.
Although Bangladesh produces jackfruit in abundance, consumers can enjoy only about half of the harvest of its national fruit. Nearly 45% is lost before it reaches the table—a level of post-harvest waste also seen in mangoes, pineapples, guavas and several other fruits.
Over the past two decades, Bangladesh has significantly expanded the cultivation of not only mangoes and jackfruit but also pineapples, bananas, guavas, watermelons, dragon fruit and a wide range of indigenous and exotic fruits. Yet the growth in production has not been matched by investment in agro-processing or modern post-harvest management.
Only a handful of companies process mangoes into pickles and juices, while efforts to commercialise jackfruit-based products remain in their infancy. For most other fruits, value addition is largely limited to small-scale production of jams and jellies.
“Bangladesh is failing to unlock the economic potential of its growing fruit sector,” said Prof Golam Rabbani of the Department of Horticulture at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU).
“If mangoes were processed into dried fruit and jackfruit into chips, juice, pulp, frozen products and other value-added foods, it would not only reduce post-harvest losses but also lessen our dependence on imported processed fruits,” he told TIMES of Bangladesh.
Prof Hasnat Mohammad Solaiman, chairman of the Department of Horticulture at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, said post-harvest losses account for between 25% and 40% of the country’s fruit production.
“Reducing these losses would boost farmers’ incomes, strengthen food and nutrition security, and significantly expand the country’s foreign exchange earnings,” he said.
Bangladesh has emerged as the world’s seventh-largest producer of mangoes, yet its growing harvest has brought diminishing returns for farmers.
According to Ariful Islam, project director of the Exportable Mango Production Project under the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the country now produces around 2.5 to 2.6 million tonnes of mangoes annually.
The mango output has risen steadily over the past decade. But the production boom has failed to translate into higher returns for farmers. Instead, surging harvests have outpaced domestic demand, flooding markets during the short harvest season and driving prices sharply lower.
The losses do not end there. A joint report by the non-governmental initiative Towards Zero Food Waste and the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) estimates that nearly 29% of Bangladesh’s annual mango production is lost to post-harvest waste.
A handful of companies, including PRAN and BD Foods, process mangoes into pickles, juices and mango bars (traditional dried mango leather). But their combined processing capacity remains far too limited to absorb the country’s growing surplus harvest.
Amid this gap, a small entrepreneurial venture in Chapainawabganj is attempting to demonstrate what value addition can achieve.
Earlier this year, Mainul Islam, a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Rajshahi, teamed up with three friends — Akuanul Banna Masum, Md Mithon Ali and Md Mainul Islam — to establish “Sabuj Bazar” in Bholahat upazila, aiming to turn surplus mangoes into premium dried fruit products.
Without formal training or sophisticated equipment, Mainul built his own fruit-drying machine after learning the process from online platforms, with help from a friend.
The project has already cost him around Tk150,000, and he expects to invest at least the same amount again before it reaches full capacity.
The machine currently produces about five kilograms of dried mangoes a day, Mainul told TIMES of Bangladesh.
“Depending on the variety, it takes 15 to 20 kilograms of fresh mangoes to produce about 1.5 kilograms of dried mangoes. Packed in airtight containers and refrigerated, the dried fruit can be stored for up to a year,” he said.
Dried mangoes fetch between Tk1,500 and Tk3,000 per kilogram—several times the value of fresh fruit during the peak harvest season.
For now, the venture operates only during the mango season. But the entrepreneurs plan to keep the business running year-round by processing other seasonal fruits once the mango harvest ends.
The economics underscore the potential of value addition. While fresh mangoes often fetch Tk1,000 or less per mound at the farm gate during the peak harvest, processing them into dried fruit can multiply their market value severalfold.
But despite strong global demand, Bangladesh has struggled to turn its surplus mangoes into export success.
Bangladesh exported just 3,100 tonnes of mangoes to 37 countries in 2023. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 2,194 tonnes, underscoring the country’s struggle to gain a foothold in the international market.
Mofidul Islam, an official of the Export Division under the Plant Quarantine Wing of the Department of Agricultural Extension, told TIMES that the government is working to open new export markets and that Bangladeshi mangoes could gain access to the Malaysian market this year.
“Beyond fresh mangoes, there is considerable export potential for mango juice, pickles and other value-added mango products,” he added.
According to the Agriculture Information Service (AIS), the country is the world’s second-largest producer of the fruit. Yet much of that potential remains untapped.
Agricultural researchers Md Golam Ferdous Chowdhury and Md Hafizul Haque Khan argue that post-harvest losses could be dramatically reduced by processing young jackfruit into “vegetable meat” and ripe fruit into chips, flour, frozen products and other value-added foods.
In a research article, they say a vibrant jackfruit-processing industry could not only increase farmers’ incomes but also open new avenues for export earnings.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has already laid part of the groundwork by developing six improved jackfruit varieties, including early-season, off-season, year-round and low-latex cultivars.
Momentum is also building in product development. Jackfruit from Gazipur has already secured Geographical Indication (GI) status, while a recent fruit fair in Dhaka, organised by the Department of Agricultural Marketing, showcased the fruit’s remarkable versatility.
Visitors sampled an array of jackfruit-based products, from biryani, burgers and bread to chips, kebabs, cutlets, pastries, cupcakes and traditional pithas, demonstrating how a fruit long associated with seasonal abundance could be transformed into a year-round, value-added industry.
Market research firm Market Intelo estimates the global jackfruit market will reach US$3.2 billion in 2025, with consumers across Europe increasingly embracing the fruit as a plant-based meat alternative. China has also expressed interest in importing Bangladeshi jackfruit.
But production alone does not guarantee export success. While India is the world’s largest producer, Vietnam leads global jackfruit exports, and Thailand exports about US$760 million worth of jackfruit and jackfruit products annually.
Bangladesh accounts for just 0.3% of global jackfruit exports, according to the joint FAO–UNESCAP study “Bangladesh: Jackfruit”.
Moreover, 76% of its exports are shipped to the United Kingdom alone, underscoring the need to diversify both products and export markets.
Pineapple tells a similar story of missed opportunity. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) Yearbook of Agricultural Statistics 2024, the country produced 208,827 tonnes of pineapples from 32,359 acres during the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Yet only a handful of businesses process the fruit into jams and jellies. Most of the harvest is sold fresh, while a substantial share is lost because of inadequate post-harvest handling and limited processing capacity.
A study titled Postharvest Loss Reduction of Fruits in Bangladesh: Achievements and Challenges by Samar Biswas, a horticulture student at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, found that 46% of the country’s pineapple harvest is lost — the highest post-harvest wastage rate among Bangladesh’s major fruits.
Guava ranks second, with 40% of production wasted, most of it after reaching wholesale markets.
The study also found Thailand and Vietnam have significantly lower post-harvest losses than Bangladesh and India, due to stronger processing industries, better storage infrastructure and more efficient supply chains.
Although Ahmed Foods has produced jams and jellies for years, the country’s fruit-processing industry remains limited.
“Dried fruits are still a relatively new concept in Bangladesh,” a company official told TIMES.
The greatest irony is that despite producing abundant mangoes, jackfruit and pineapples, the country continues to import dried fruits and other processed fruit products.
According to HM Cargo Importers, the country mainly imports dried mangoes, jackfruit, pineapples and small quantities of dried mushrooms from Thailand, while additional supplies come from Vietnam, China, India, Türkiye and Iran.
However, demand for imported dried fruits falls during the domestic harvest season, when fresh mangoes, jackfruit and pineapples become widely available, a company representative said, adding Bangladesh lacks the technology, investment, entrepreneurial capacity and skilled workforce to build a competitive dried-fruit processing industry.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics’ Foreign Trade Statistics 2025, Bangladesh imported fresh and dried fruits and nuts worth Tk88.95 billion in 2025.
