Sub Saharan Africa is unfortunately known for its difficult and unreliable access to affordable food. In fact, Kenyans spend 55% of their disposable income only on food (My African Startup, 2019). As well, due to cosmetic standards and important order cancellations, Kenya’s post-harvest waste rise up to 30%, creating important wasted resources (land, energy, fuel…) and severe financial losses for the ecosystem (exporters, farmers and vendors) (Colbert, 2020). For example, a banana bought in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, which was produced in Kenya, costs the same price as a banana produced in Guatemala and bought in London (Nsehe, 2018).
Founded in 2013 by Grant Brooke, in Kenya, Twiga Foods is an application based business to business company, which is revolutionizing the Kenyan fresh food supply chain, by connecting food producers (farmers and other producers) to informal vendors (Twiga Foods Revolutionizing African Retail, 2020). They source qualitative fresh food from these producers, stock it in their pack houses and then sell them at a fair price to thousands of vendors. Through this organized platform for an efficient, fair and transparent marketplace, Twiga Foods aims at overcoming the above mentioned challenges in Kenya.
By unifying over 4 000 suppliers and 35 000 vendors and by aggregating demand with the use of instant-data while cutting out the ‘middle men’, post-harvest losses have dropped from 30% to only 4% (Twiga Foods Revolutionizing African Retail, 2020). Thanks to this process, high food prices are lower in Kenya than in any typical African market.
Therefore, Twiga Foods is an innovation itself in different ways. First of all, suppliers are paid within 24 hours through a bank or through Twiga’s application. This is key as it allows farmers to access credits from financial institutions, allowing growth and prosperity. As well, when surplus of supply used to happen, the products were usually thrown away. However, today, thanks to Twiga Foods, this surplus is now being allocated, ensuring a consistent market throughout the year (Twiga Foods Revolutionizing African Retail, 2020).
Through all of these positive outcomes, it can be easily understood why Twiga Foods has raised 30 million USD (Bright, 2019) from lenders and investors (like the EIB, European Investment Bank) in 2019, and why, young entrepreneurship, with the great use of innovation and data can be so powerful, especially when helping those who need it the most.
References
- My African Startup. [ebook] Available at: <http://www.myafricanstartup.com/fr/myafricanstartup-100/startup/2017/180/twiga-foods/>
Bright, J., 2019. Kenya’S Twiga Foods Eyes West Africa After $30M Raise Led By Goldman. [ebook]
Colbert, E., 2020. Food Waste In Kenya: Uncovering Food Waste In The Horticultural Export Supply Chain. [ebook]
Nsehe, M., 2018. Kenyan Startup Twiga Foods Raises $10 Million.
Twiga Foods. 2020. Twiga Foods Revolutionizing African Retail. [online] Available at: <https://twiga.com/twiga-story/>
Hi Eliot,
What an interesting blog post! I have never heard about the company Twiga Foods before, but after having read your blog post, I will check them out for sure. I was wondering how you got to know this company? I think it is great to see a start ups like Twiga Food, who aim to help those who need it the most.
Thanks again for sharing!
Hi Eliot,
Very interesting company you describe in your article! I have never heard of it before, but it looks very innovative and revolutionary for the african national economies! Especially the effects the company has made on both economic and environmental aspects. However, there is one thing that I did not fully understand from your article; how did Twiga foods manage to make such a difference in Kenya; decreasing the post harvest waste but also making the harvest much more accessible and affordable for people. Was there no logistic system in Kenya for agricultural goods, before the arrival of Twiga foods? Or was it the infrastructure itself that caused this problem?