EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Fruit Candy production, a MSME that has employed mostly the women, not only challenges traditional gender norms and societal expectations that often confine them to domestic roles but also inspire future generations and promote greater gender equality and social justice.
However, despite their key contribution, women entrepreneurs in Nepal face several barriers like limited access to finance, inadequate skills and information, persistent cultural norms, and informal sector concentration. The survey shows that many women entrepreneurs lack access to market information, management skills, and ICT training, which limits their ability to scale up their businesses and access new markets. Likewise, a large percentage of women's businesses are in the informal, micro-enterprise sector, making them ‘invisible’ to government support schemes, social protection, and formal regulations, despite few initiatives of the local governments in recent days. They lack government and non-governmental organization (NGO) assistance and cooperation, despite the potential to up scale the businesses.
To fully harness the potential of women in MSME development, stakeholders recommend targeted interventions such as simplified access to finance, tailored skill development programs, and community awareness campaigns to challenge existing gender norms.
The Fruit Candy (Titaura) industry operates as a key vocational training ground, primarily transferring skills through on-the-job experience rather than traditional means. While owners show high commercialization readiness, financial constraints (especially access to Capital and Low-Interest Loans) and limited government support remain the biggest barriers. The industry shows strong potential for export, but requires systemic policy interventions to formalize production methods and quality assurance. The high percentage in ‘On the Job/Factory’ indicates the Fruit Candy industry functions as a practical vocational skills hub, evolving away from purely traditional, family-based transfer. This suggests the industry is modernizing its skill pipeline by integrating new workers directly, as the number of workers is decreasing due to mass migration lately.
The entrepreneurs actively teach or share skills with others, confirming their role as skill custodians and trainers within their communities/workforce. Likewise, the high rate of machinery use also indicates a strong readiness for commercial scaling and a move toward formalized production.
The gap between the high need for training/support and the low reported reception indicates a policy delivery failure. While training access is moderate, direct financial or institutional support remains minimal, suggesting a need for better policy communication and easier access.
The Fruit Candy industry is a vibrant, predominantly women-led sector with significant potential for commercialization, demonstrated by high rates of skill transfer and technology adoption among leading entrepreneurs. However, this potential is critically undermined by systemic lack of policy support and severe financial constraints affecting both the labor force (staff) and the scaling of businesses (owners).
According to the survey, there is a gap between the general awareness of support programs and the actual receipt of assistance. Many have expressed a need for specific types of support. A majority of the respondents are not aware of support programs, only few explicitly stated they were aware. Most of them lack business management, market linkages/export facilitation, followed by lack of machinery/equipment and access to finance support, though the local government has conducted a couple of trainings in the last four years.
This sort of training subsequently contributes to the quality and cleanliness of the factory and factory workers. While a significant portion of producers actively practice quality assurance, an equally large group does not (or at least does not formally identify their practice as such). Even a 10% increase in efficiency through technical training, better equipment, and financial grants would raise total monthly output significantly.
Using a holistic sample baseline of 20,530 kg of monthly production (adding all the productions), a 10% productivity improvement would add more than 2.2 tons each month (26.4 tons annually). If there were to be a more substantial quality push through better packaging, hygiene protocols, and consistent production standards, it could raise exportable output to 20% or even 50%. In that scenario, exports could rise fourfold to fivefold, ranging from around 5.5 tons to over 16.53 tons per month, a whopping 66 tons to 198.4 tons annually.
An increase in skills training, following the food regulations, and quality production opens the door for exports, which will translate into increased government revenue and employment benefiting both the government and employees. The more people develop the skill of Fruit Candy making, the more inclined they will be to work within this industry; likewise, if the cleanliness and hygiene requirements are met, people will be more inclined to purchase the goods. The producers can therefore maintain or improve the quality of the increased output, making it suitable for broader market linkages/export facilitation, which is a key requested support throughout the data. Findings from the survey indicate a sector with significant untapped potential. High levels of skill sharing, growing use of machinery, and strong entrepreneurial intent suggest readiness for productivity enhancement and market expansion, including export opportunities. This potential is constrained by systemic barriers such as limited access to affordable finance, inadequate business management and ICT skills, weak market linkages, and continued informality. These challenges are compounded for women entrepreneurs by structural and socio-cultural factors.
The backward chain of Fruit Candy (lapsi titaura) in Nepal is anchored in the indigenous production of lapsi (Choerospondias axillaris) in the mid-hill regions, where the fruit is traditionally grown and harvested on a seasonal basis. Strengthening backward linkages lies in improving orchard management, promoting quality sapling nurseries, and organizing farmers into cooperatives to ensure consistent supply, better bargaining power, and quality control. Reliable access to complementary inputs such as sugar, spices, packaging materials, and basic storage and transport facilities is equally critical. Enhanced coordination between farmers, input suppliers, and small-scale processors can reduce post-harvest losses, stabilize raw material availability, and increase overall efficiency of the value chain.
The forward chain begins with processing lapsi into titaura through cleaning, pulping, cooking, drying, and flavoring, largely within cottage and small-scale enterprises. Opportunities in this segment include improved hygienic processing practices, product diversification, and upgraded packaging and branding to meet urban and export market standards. Distribution channels extend from local markets to national retail outlets, online platforms, tourism hubs, and selected international markets serving the Nepali diaspora. With quality assurance, certification, and market linkage support, lapsi candy holds strong potential for value addition, rural employment generation particularly for women and increased income compared to raw fruit sales, making it a viable agro-processing enterprise within Nepal’s non-timber forest product economy.
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