The great innovation aiding farmers in Kenya minimize food stuff squander

Estimated read time 4 min read
  • Quite a few smallholder farmers in Kenya deficiency access to chilly storage amenities, which can guide to make staying wasted.
  • Now small-quantity farmers of avocado, mango and french beans are screening spend-as-you-go cold storage models from Kenya-dependent firm SokoFresh.
  • Plans for 400 cold storage units in 5 a long time could increase money for 35,000 farmers.
  • SokoFresh is a member of The Circulars Accelerator on UpLink, an initiative to aid round economic system business owners scale their innovations.

A business in Kenya is utilizing solar power to assistance smallholder farmers continue to keep harvested deliver neat and reduce foodstuff squander.

Little-volume farmers of avocado, mango and french beans in Kenya are supporting to test the model from SokoFresh, which manages mobile chilly storage units that operate on 100% photo voltaic strength.

By paying a small volume (1 Kenyan shilling) for each kilogram on a fork out-as-you-go foundation, farmers or develop consumers can access chilly storage affordably when they need to have it.


About 90% of Kenya’s agricultural produce arrives from smallholders, who really don’t have the kind of chilly storage answers offered to massive-scale producers. This means lots of make perishes in outside the house temperatures after being harvested.

“More than 30% of all food produced in the earth for human intake receives shed or wasted,” SokoFresh states. “And foodstuff decline in Africa happens virtually solely in the creation and distribution stages.”


Farmers applying the design can earn up to 50% a lot more on their harvest, whilst purchasers get far more and greater high-quality produce.

The price tag of logistics is also lessened, because vehicles are buying up full loads that have been saved in the cold storage units by various farmers.

Enviu, the Netherlands-primarily based influence enterprise firm behind SokoFresh, hopes to have a network of 400 chilly storage units in the upcoming 5 several years. This would support 35,000 farmers, generating 3,000 new work opportunities in rural areas and cutting down greenhouse gasoline emissions.

Foods squander from agriculture

a chart showing food waste

14 Per cent of Food stuff Goes to Squander.

Graphic: Statista

All over 14% of foodstuff is dropped soon after harvest on farms and at the transportation, storage, processing and wholesale levels, according to the Food stuff and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This food items has a price of far more than $400 billion a calendar year.

UN Secretary-Common António Guterres final calendar year explained food decline and squander as an “ethical outrage.”

“In a environment with sufficient meals to feed all people, everywhere you go, 690 million individuals continue to go hungry and 3 billion can not manage a balanced food plan,” he reported.

By 2030, UN member states have pledged to halve meals waste and lower foods reduction as aspect of Sustainable Progress Target 12.

Shifting the world-wide food stuff program will be important to addressing climate improve, creating wholesome towns, and rebuilding biodiversity, in accordance to the Ellen MacArthur Basis, a round economic climate organization. This can be accomplished by sourcing food stuff grown regeneratively (and locally where ideal), building and advertising and marketing much healthier solutions and earning the most of food stuff.

SokoFresh is a member of The Circulars Accelerator, an initiative to assistance business people scale innovations that will help the planet move in direction of a circular economic climate – in which waste is eradicated and methods are made use of once more and again.

UpLink is a electronic system to crowdsource improvements in an hard work to tackle the world’s most pressing problems.

It is an open system built to have interaction any one who needs to provide a contribution for the world public fantastic. The core objective is to backlink up the finest innovators to networks of decision-makers, who can put into action the modify desired for the following ten years. As a world wide platform, UpLink serves to aggregate and guide concepts and impactful activities, and make connections to scale-up impression.

Hosted by the Planet Financial Forum, UpLink is becoming built and produced in collaboration with Salesforce, Deloitte and LinkedIn.

There are now 17 businesses in The Circulars Accelerator 2021 Cohort. Led by Accenture in collaboration with the Planet Financial Forum’s UpLink system, Anglo American, Ecolab and Schneider Electric powered, the six-month remote programme features professional round overall economy workshops, coaching modules, mentoring, networking opportunities, investor engagement and accelerator group assistance.


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