OUR STORY
It started with fruit that had nowhere to go.
Mavuno began with a simple idea: connect harvests that were going unsold with people who wanted good food.
WHERE IT STARTED
A harvest without a market.
As a Peace Corps volunteer in Miti Mingi, Kenya, Phil Hughes lived in a rural farming community where many families had little cash income, but fruit grew all around them. During mango season, the harvest came all at once. Without enough buyers, much of that fruit had nowhere to go.
Phil kept coming back to a simple question: what if more of that harvest could become income for the people who grew it?
THE IDEA
What if there were more buyers?
The fruit wasn't the problem. The missing piece was a market.
Drying could preserve the harvest long enough for it to travel beyond the local market. Instead of trying to create something farmers didn't already have, Mavuno could help create demand for something they were already growing.
The idea was simple: make food people wanted to buy, and connect that demand back to the people and places where it was grown.
BUILDING MAVUNO
Build the market, not the farm.
When Phil returned to East Africa to start Mavuno, he originally imagined building the supply chain from the farm up. But he quickly realized much of what was needed was already there.
Local businesses were already drying fruit. Farmers were already growing it. What they needed was more demand.
So Mavuno began working with existing producers instead — businesses rooted in the countries where the fruit was grown. They could buy from farmers, process the harvest locally and build businesses of their own. Mavuno's job was to help create a market for what they made.
That idea still shapes the company today.
GROWING THE NETWORK
More fruit. More partners.
As Mavuno grew, the sourcing network grew with it. More demand meant more fruit, more processing capacity and more long-term relationships across sub-Saharan Africa and Sri Lanka.
Today, Mavuno works with in-country partners connected to farming communities where our ingredients are grown.
When customers buy again, Mavuno buys again. That's how the mission grows.
WHAT CAME NEXT
It started with dried fruit. We kept going.
Dried fruit
Fruit bites
Chocolate-dipped fruit
Roasted nuts
MAVUNO TODAY
A bigger assortment. The same starting point.
Mavuno is still founder-led and based in Philadelphia. The products and sourcing network have grown considerably since those first bags of dried fruit, but the idea behind the company hasn't changed.
Make food people genuinely want. Build lasting relationships with the people who produce it. And keep coming back to buy again.
A durable mission needs a durable business. Fifteen years later, we're still building both.
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