Africa’s smallholder farmers lose millions of kilograms worth of produce to post-harvest losses. This creates an urgency to sell the food quickly once matured, which exposes farmers to exploitation from brokers. About 30-40% of horticulture produce in Sub-Saharan Africa does not make it to market, hindered by informal and unreliable supply chains. Farmers frequently lose quality produce due to their inability to store it post-harvest and in turn, they earn less, and waste vast quantities of food.

SokoFresh is providing reliable and efficient solar-powered cold-chain solutions to support the East Africa horticulture sector, disrupting the value chain by structuring produce aggregation, upgrading the logistics process, and decentralizing cold-chain access. By finding buyers — both domestic and export-processing — through its market linkage platform, SokoFresh eliminates numerous middlemen and increases farmer income.

SokoFresh’s promise of better prices and consistent demand remains a winning formula for securing and retaining new farmers. Buyers are willing to procure more volume and pay a premium for top quality supplies, reliability, and fair and transparent pricing as they in turn save costs on aggregation and logistics.

+  Increase utilization of the cold-storage units by:
Expanding sourcing by improving penetration of sourcing from the smallholder farmer network, and entering new underserved local and cross-border geographies (Tanzania, Rwanda, etc.).

+  Value chain diversification by raising use-cases for the cold-storage units to drive up utilization rates as a path towards achieving financial sustainability.

+ Introducing other crops for areas currently known for certain key produce e.g. pineapples in Kilifi besides mangoes.

+  Refining operations and logistics with better technology.

+  Headcount build-out to achieve the aggressive scale up plan