As global buyers and sellers gathered for the first-ever Mango Symposium in northern Cote d’Ivoire, one South African company needed no introduction to the industry’s potential there. JAB Dried Fruit—one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of dried fruit, nuts and sweets in South Africa—had already contacted USAID’s West Africa Trade and Investment Hub to find suppliers there. At the event in April 2017 its CEO signed its first contract with an Ivorian partner. In 2018, JAB expects to form four more joint ventures with Ivoirian factories—an enormous boost for the country’s emerging mango industry. JAB has since installed six new mango dryers—with more scheduled to arrive in early 2018—at LA & Fruit in Korhogo. The recently formed company unites three longtime, family-owned mango packhouses to handle expected demand from JAB, and said LA & Fruit’s general manager, Mr. Yezoulou Soro. Rather than modify existing infrastructure, LA & Fruit built a new $160,000 factory, which can be expanded to hold 10 dryers next season. The company will send a team to JAB’s South African facility in December 2017 for training on mango drying and equipment maintenance. Based in Nelspruit, with an office in New York for U.S. distribution, JAB approached the Trade Hub in early 2017 in its search for off-season mango. Its managing director, Corne Barnard, said Cote d’Ivoire’s large mango stocks and more advanced packhouse infrastructure fit well with JAB’s market connections and attention to quality. “They’ve got proper packaging houses, packaging facilities, which have been exporting,” Mr. Barnard said. JAB’s five-year plan in Cote d’Ivoire is to process 17,000 tons of fresh mango into 1,000 tons of dried fruit per year, creating jobs for 2,500 workers and 5,000 people elsewhere in the sector, including in orchards. Cote d’Ivoire grows 180,000 tons of mango each season, exporting 32,000 tons of the fresh fruit to Europe— and losing 60 percent to post-harvest loss and waste. In FY17, the Trade Hub provided technical assistance to more than 21 producers, exporters and processors to improve the quality of the country’s exportable mango. It organized the Mango Symposium in partnership with the Inter-professional Agricultural Research and Advisory Fund and the Ivorian Chamber of Commerce, attracting buyers from the U.S., EU, West and South Africa, including JAB.