A Sadio Mané mango plant worth CFA11.7bn will process 8,500 tonnes a year in Bambali as Senegal tries to cut heavy post harvest fruit losses

Sadio Mané, the Senegalese footballer and Africa Cup of Nations winner, launched a Sadio Mané mango plant worth CFA11.7bn ($20.4m) in Bambali, Sédhiou Region, southern Senegal, on 19 September 2026, as Ecofin Agency reported the start of the SM10 Agro project.

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The complex is designed to process mangoes on a larger scale and to create work in the village where Sadio Mané grew up.

The plant is planned to handle 8,500 tonnes of mangoes a year, turning fruit into pulp, dried mango and mango butter.

A 500 hectare plantation of Kent mangoes will sit alongside it.

Bambali lies in Casamance, Senegal’s leading mango growing belt. The region has long produced more fruit than it can process, and a large share of the harvest has been lost after picking.

Senegal is estimated to lose 30 to 45 per cent of harvested fruit each year. Poor farming practice, weak handling at harvest, difficult transport and too few factories have all played a part.

At the launch, Sadio Mané said he wanted a legacy that outlasted the pitch.

“I don’t want to be remembered only for the goals I scored. Before the stadiums, the lights and the victories, there was, of course, Bambali. This is where my dreams began. We want to help create jobs and develop agriculture,” he said.

The factory is also meant to take fruit that may not meet European Union phytosanitary rules for export.

That crop can still be processed at home rather than left to rot.

A 2023 study by the Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rurale, cited by Ecofin Agency, found that most existing mango factories in Casamance were clustered in Ziguinchor. Sédhiou and Kolda, which grow local varieties, were poorly served.

Processors in the south have also struggled to find packaging and labelling nearby, and some have had to look to Dakar for those services.

The investment arrives as Senegal’s mango export trade recovers from fruit fly infestations and other plant health problems that closed doors to Europe.

Senegal exported about 27,000 tonnes of mangoes in 2021. Shipments later fell.

Exports to Europe have since climbed to more than 19,000 tonnes in 2026, from about 14,000 tonnes the previous season, after tighter controls on fruit flies.

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SM10 Agro will not by itself solve those national losses. It does, however, put processing capacity in a hometown that has had little of it, and it ties a global football name to a local farming problem that has been expensive for growers for years.