Foodline

The global volume of food wastage is estimated to be 1.6 Gtonnes of primary product equivalents, while the total wastage for the edible part of food is 1.3 Gtonnes. Without accounting for GHG emissions from land use change, the carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is estimated to 3.3 Gtonnes of CO2 equivalent. Grown but uneaten food has significant environmental and economic costs. Obviously, this food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security and to mitigate environmental impacts generated by agriculture. 

Foodline.rw is a digitally merged agriculture market across Africa that is specialized in supply-chain to bridge the gap between food wastage and market inefficiency; all this to map the mostly sustainable food production and responsible consumption. For us to achieve our vision, we are leveraging on franchising micro & small agribusiness retailers operating in various African markets alongside farmers and cooperatives to raise awareness.

Families in urban cities like to buy diverse, good quality and fresh agriculture produce at reasonable prices. They have to spend time getting themselves to the market for food items purchase. This mostly happens almost twice a week and considerable time is spent, selecting, bargaining, and carrying up to 20kgs of more than ten kinds of agriculture produce. The challenges include unpredictable prices (seasonal fluctuations), haphazard weighing and packaging, lack of quality assurance (uncertain availability), inconvenient payment method and logistics. Particularly in this COVID-19 crisis, this can spread contamination faster in market exchange processes. 

We believe quality food is a basic human right and are set to transform agricultural value chains in order to ensure urban communities have easy access to quality fresh food. We are planning to build sustainable food systems by investing in our digitally merged agriculture market for Africa all this to map a more efficient food logistics set-up, leverage customers’ data (tastes, preferences, & buying patterns) to trigger matching production mix.

How It Works & Process

We are targeting African citizens whose food consumption budget make up 70% portion of their earnings. According to Michael Kavanagh (Financial Times, January 2019), 60% of African population on average spend approximately 70% of their income on food items. Although statistics varies among countries, but characters are similar. Most of them are able to pay for the service provided, are busy people, are reluctant to spend excessive time in low market bargaining. They are mostly affected by price fluctuation as they have low awareness of market dynamics, and prefer best quality that reflects their social status.

We are a cross-border supply-line that connects places with continental agriculture markets; bringing best customer experience across the continent. Our customers can access their preferred products' origin and tastes wherever in Africa at reasonable prices.

Unlike other agriculture supply-lines such as Olado, store2door, Get It, HeHe Malt, etc. which are mainly local, we are a cross-border supply-line that connects places with continental agriculture markets; bringing best customer experience across the continent. Our customers can access their preferred products' origin and tastes wherever in Africa at reasonable prices. We also use our stored data to fill the puzzle so as to line up consumer behaviors for strategic decision. 

Currently, we only use Web Interface to run and monitor our digital market place (e-commerce). We are willing to invest in our website so as to integrate online payment systems such as Paypal & Mobile Money; as well as the alternative technology solutions including Mobile Application, and USSD so as to improve our service delivery. 

Our deployed technology is a commonly used technology which is classified as any other e-commerce that sell products online such as Amazon, Alibaba, Ebay, Etc. Those e-commerce technologies are intermediaries between producers and consumers; they facilitate the buying and selling deal, transactions, and shipping of product purchased. Foodline.rw is another technology within the e-commerce category that is exclusively specialized in agribusiness.

Foodline Demo

Almost 70 percent of the African population is employed with agriculture sector which makes it the largest contributor to various countries' national GDP. As a result of a poorly developed sector, approximately 60 to 80 percent of farmers in Africa live below the poverty line due to narrow markets, changes in seasons, and poor agriculture practices. Beside, Africa is a renowned continent in agriculture practice yet almost 40 percent of the agriculture produce is wasted in spite of 226.7 million people who are starving due to poor market practice and disequilibrium. Our approaches are simple services that can be marketed in broader developing world. 

In January 2020, we saw a pilot launch of Foodline. After two months prior market study, we celebrated our first customer acquisition in March 2020. We grow from 1-2 to 5 plus orders in a week with average increase of 20 percent each week because customers appreciate our services consistency. Today, we mark 34 percent of Rwandan population with an expansion plan to 56.6 percent Nigerian population, 45 percent Ugandan population, 44 percent Ghanaian population, 40 percent Botswana population, and 37 percent Ethiopian population in 2-5 years strategic road map. Herein numbers demonstrate individuals and households who spend at least 70 percent of their earnings on food consumption. 

Goals

• Market expansion, we are aiming on penetrating 5 to 10 African markets in 3 trade blocs (EAC, COMESA, and ECOWAS) in 5 years.
• Data engineering, we are aiming on building reliable data storage for food consumption across Africa to catalyze strategic economic and business decisions in 5 years.
• Strategic investment, we are aiming on mobilizing 40 percent of our earned profit to acquire shares in 1 to 2 promising agriculture projects once in 2 years.

We are mostly challenged with our lowly capacity to accommodate our market share such as franchising administrations, packaging, etc. Furthermore, poor technology facilities such as the absence of a fully functioning e-commerce, mobile application, and USSD are forefront obstacles to win the market. We are also challenged with visibility as a newly established business. For us to fix these issues, we are in need of any kind of investment including in-kind benefits, and monetary investments with 25% in preferential shares, grants, small interest loans, and peer-lenders. So far we have mobilized $5,000 in equity to initialize the project but the project cost is $66,074.00 and we are calling up; $32,258.06 in the first year, and $28,815.94 in the second year. 

In brief, for us to achieve our short-term and long-term goals, we're in need of media exposure, technical support including market approach advisory and strategic plan fine-tuning, and financial support for implementation. 

We retain 25% on the executed order of produces. In addition, we charge local transportation fee equivalent to 3 USD per order delivered. We are currently leveraging on contract management to finance our daily operations. We contract farmers to execute our orders and get paid on the agreed price-set following the execution of the order. We also contract franchisees as our sales agents in their territories and they are paid 15% commissions on their respective sales generated. 

None

Team

• Full-time (5)
• Part-time (3)
• Franchisees (18)
• Farmers & Suppliers (5)

Foodline is led by a youthful and energetic management with one commonly shared DNA - Innovation. Senior management positions include Managing Director, Chief Legal, and Chief Finance. Headed by Eric Josue Ishimwe, the Managing Director is qualified in Business Administration with Bachelor’s degree in respective expertise with middle career management level (5 years on job experience). Headed by Emmy Mugunga, the Chief Legal is qualified in Law with bachelor’s degree in respective expertise with middle career management level (5 years on job experience). Headed by Gilbert Ngororano, the Chief Finance is qualified in Accounting with Bachelor’s degree in respective expertise with senior management level (12 years on job experience). Implementation team is composed with 2 Salesmen and IT Administrator with entry level career (1-3 years on job experience).

None

We retain 25% on the executed order of produces. In addition, we charge local transportation fee equivalent to 3 USD per order delivered locally and 5 USD per Kg imported. We are currently leveraging on contract management to finance our daily operations. We contract farmers to execute our orders and get paid on the agreed price-set following the execution of the order. We also contract franchisees as our sales agents in their territories and they are paid 15% commissions on their respective sales generated. 

While talent is distributed evenly in Africa, opportunity is not. And too many young people find the path to success riddled with obstacles including financial barriers and skills gap, often lying just out of reach. I see my younger self in these young men full of talent and possibility but stuck in the middle of reaching their potentials. That's why I'm eager to join this program to structure Foodline to become African leading innovation in agriculture supply-chain.

For us to achieve our short-term and long-term goals, we're in need of media exposure, technical support including market approach advisory and strategic plan fine-tuning, and financial support for implementation. 

Partnership goals

• Cyber security, we want to partner with MIT-ICT department to help us structure the most secured and high level technology system to encrypt our customer data.
• Media exposure, we want to partner with international mass medias such as Forbes Magazine, Jeune Afrique, CNTV, name it to capture global attention and visibility.
• Resource mobilization, we want to partner with private investors, or civil societies in agriculture sector such as AGRA, GAIN, name to help us fund our short-term and long-term obligations. 

Agriculture  can  be  an  important  engine  of  growth  and  poverty  reduction.  But  the  sector  is  underperforming in many countries because women, who are often a crucial resource in agriculture and the  rural  economy,  face  constraints  that  reduce  their  productivity. Aggregate data shows  that  women  comprise  about  60 to 80  percent  of  the  agricultural  labor in  developing  countries according to FAO. Foodline is committed to uplift women in agriculture and informal sector particularly small-holder farmers and micro food vendors. As key stakeholders in our service circle, women are our main farm-fresh suppliers and franchisees occupying 70 percent of the entire implementation team. We are aiming on training them into sustainable food handling in their respective expertise including retailing, packaging, name it so as to enhance their market bargaining power.