source: http://truegossip.ng/important-steps-start-bean-flour-business/

First, you decide how you want to start – small, medium or large scale. For small and medium scale, you can start anywhere, anytime with a little amount of money. You will sweat a bit, though, because of the manual nature of the work involved. This is usually not a big deal for the hardworking entrepreneur. To start big scale, some machinery is required. You can get a sense of the type of machines, and what they cost, from grain-processing.org.
Basically, there are 3 stages in bean flour production:



Pre-Processing: This involves getting raw materials (bean seeds) to start with. Brown and white Beans which are the main raw materials for beans flour are mostly available and grown in the northern parts of Nigeria. You need to make sure that the varieties you use are strong and free from weevils infestation.



Processing: The difference between making bean flour and preparing bean seeds for immediate use is drying. Processing involves sorting (removing the stones and chaff), dehulling (removing the outer layer), drying, milling and sifting.

Packaging: How you package is entirely up to you. The more creative your branding and packaging, the better. Google ‘bean flour’ and see some of the ways other brands are packaged, then improve on that to create your unique brand.



Most farm produce can be eaten in different ways thus making it very exciting and pleasurable. Processing of foodstuffs makes it possible to have it in different forms thus avoiding boredom experienced from eating a particular kind of food. Processing involves lots of investment in processing equipments but can be started on a small scale. The focus of this publication is on mini processing of beans to produce beans flour that can be used as moimoi or beans cake and also packaging for commercial consumption. If you’re reading this article you may have interest in establishing a mini beans processing plant.
Below are some of the steps:
Step 1

Source for suppliers: When considering food processing business, the major task is sourcing for reliable suppliers that offers reasonable and competitive price. Suppliers for beans varieties (white and brown) can be sourced from the northern part of the country Nigeria mainly Sokoto and Kebbi state.
Step 2

Sort and Clean: Now you have a small factory either rented or owned, all necessary requirements by the government and other legal authorities have been satisfied and suppliers have supplied the specified quantity; the next line of action is to sort and clean the beans to remove stones and other seeds.
beans sorting

The above machine is currently costed 10,000 USD approximately 2million Naira as at the time this publication but this can be fabricated locally.

At this stage, one can think of packaging the sorted beans for commercialization… i.e. sell to restaurant, hotels, multinational companies, homes etc, but if you want to further process it into more useful form, you can proceed with the below steps.
Step 3

Peel beans: Peel the beans by moderately sprinkling them with water to ease the dehulling process. This can be done using beans peeler either imported or locally fabricated.

As at the time of this publication, the cost is 5000 USD approximately 1million Naira (landing cost is not inclusive).
Step 4

Dry/Grind: Here, the dehulled beans is moved into the milling machine which produces a low heat environment that would dry the beans(so as to retain and maintain the nutrients) before milling into flour.

The price for this milling machine is 20,000USD approximately 4million Naira as at the time of this publication. There are alternative sources of machines that will fall within your budget if you want to start this business… one good thing about this machines are their multifunctional capabilities. You can mill every other thing in future as you start such as rice, plantain, soya beans etc.
Step 5

Packaging: This is final stage. Packaging plays an important role in marketing of the products, therefore, should be given a serious attention. I always advocate that entrepreneurs employ the services of a professional when it comes to packaging. Your packaging as an entrepreneur will determine the way your products will be addressed, your customers may not see or know where your factory is and how big or small it is but your packaging can tell more about your business.

The cost of this machine ranges from 12,000USD to 80,000USD approximately 2.4million to 16million Naira. There are also alternative to this for young entrepreneurs that might want to venture into this business, you can get a local fabricated shrink machine within your budget and expand into automatic machines in the future.
Step 6

Marketing: Marketing food stuff is the easiest thing anyone would think of because everyone eats on daily basis. All you need to do is to look for salespeople either internally recruited or outsourced who will search for the wholesalers in major markets and introduce the new products to them with bonuses. You can also consider television ad or bill board to create product awareness or as a young entrepreneur with little budget for marketing, you can leverage on social media and context marketing.

However, there are other things you may want to consider before commercialization such as NAFDAC registration and approval ; full scaleyou can read it up here. This is a very important and fundamental prerequisite even before youfull-scaleproduction.