ADELAÏDE LAOUROU, DIRECTOR OF A PROCESSING FACTORY OF CASHEW APPLE, DASSA

Holder of a master's degree in local development and decentralization, Adelaide, a brave 47-year-old woman, embarked on female entrepreneurship 11 years ago in Dassa, a town located 201 km from Cotonou. She runs a cooperative of 17 members. Its cashew processing unit and various other fruits employs 8 permanent staff mostly women and 15 casual agents. AGBARA OLUWA, which means "the divine power" in the Yoruba language, is the name of its Establishment, the first cooperative in Benin to valorize the cashew apple. The production of this unit for the last three years is as follows: 2017: 500,000 bottles of juice including 12500 cashew apple; 2018: 700,000 bottles including 23,412 of cashew apples; 2019: production in progress and 27200 bottles of cashew apple. Adelaide LAOUROU was the first president of GIE (Economic Interest Group) SWEET BENIN driven by BeninCajù.
"With BeninCajù's technical training and support for cashew processing and leadership, our cashew apple juice production has grown by 14700 bottles, or 200% in two years (2017-2019). We aim to reach the 50,000 bottles by 2021. '' Adelaïde LAOUROU. 
Her leadership led to her being elected president of the National Union of Cooperative Cashew Apple Producers of Benin, created in March 2019.
She was congratulated and honored by BeninCajù, during the event on '' Gender Performance in Agricultural Value Chains and Female Entrepreneurship '' held in Kouandé on 04 July 2019. A pioneer in the valorization of cashew apple in Benin, Adelaide travels through the countries of the West African subregion as a quality consultant for the valorization of cashew and its derivatives.