SokoFresh - Offgrid, mobile cold storage

Currently over 40% - 50% of horticultural produce is lost mainly due to poor storage and handling practices.  The produce loss leads to financial losses for smallholder farmers, under investment in production and inconsistency in supply of the produce. 

SokoFresh unlocks the opportunity for farmers, agents and buyers to access much needed cold storage at first mile, adopt better produce handling during harvesting and market linkage.We are pioneers in the development of a business model that works for smallholder farmers.

We achieve this through a 3 in 1 service that encompasses offgrid, pay-as-you-store cold storage, produce handling though the use of crates and market linkage service.

This solution leads to an increase in high quality produce that reaches the market, bridging the information divide between farmers and the market, directly enabling the farmers and traders to earn more money though sale of high quality produce and sale of more volumes. 

Estimates of horticultural losses in Kenya have been reported to be as high as 50 percent, mainly due to poor storage and handling practices. An important reason for the losses is the high fragmentation and ad-hoc way of working in the value chain. The fragmentation leads to mismatches between harvest and transportation. Current non-cooled storages cannot prevent the fast deterioration of harvests awaiting buyers. And buyers struggle, having to bring crops within 24 hours to urban cold stores. Within the chain, small holder farmers who make up over 80% of the entire population of farmers, suffer the most, selling low volumes, at low quality and prices.

According to FAO each year, the world loses or squanders a third of the food it produces. Food losses and waste total approximately $310 billion in developing countries.

The horticulture industry in Kenya is the fastest growing agricultural sub-sector and ranks third in terms of foreign exchange earnings from exports, after tourism and tea. Between 2005 and 2014, mango production in Kenya almost tripled, while avocado production saw more than a two-fold increase. As production of horticultural produce increases the problem will be even more prevalent.

Our solution is a 3 in 1 solution offering first mile cold storage, smart aggregation and market linkage for farmers, farmer agents and buyers of horticultural produce in Kenya. SokoFresh offers a rent to store model for the off-grid cold storage service thus lowering the barrier for utilization of the technology. Our customers pay on a per kilo/ per day basis for the produce they store. Through the service produce that is harvested from farms is stored in crates at the cold storage within a few hours of harvesting thus achieving quality preservation for up to 21 days.  We integrate the use of crates to ensure minimal mechanical damage of the produce. The cold storage is designed to store a wide range of horticultural produce and so we offer the service in different regions based on the seasons. The technology allows for remote monitoring of the cold storage conditions both temperature and humidity. We are also building a market place to enable farmers to access markets directly thus enabling them to have a choice on price and when to sell. 

The solution serves small holder farmers, farmer agents and buyers in the following ways;

1. It provides a conducive environment to store produce once it is harvested.
2. The cold storage acts as an aggregation point where buyers store produce until they achieve their desired volumes without risk of quality degradation.
3. We provide information on aggregated volumes to potential buyers and link the buyers to the farmers.

The solution enables all parties to drastically reduce post-harvest losses that are currently prevalent during harvesting and aggregation of horticultural produce and hence increase the volume of produce sold and the incomes generated from the sales. We aim to streamline the aggregation process for horticultural farmers growing avocado, mango and French beans. We are currently undertaking baseline studies and have pilots planned in Murang’a, Makueni and Liakipia counties as we learn more about the issues and refine our business model.

The ability to increase the shelf-life of fresh produce from a few days to 2-3 weeks provides buyers with more time to aggregate higher volumes and buy more produce from individual farmers. The produce loss reduction increases the revenues across the chain and benefits the farmers by increasing their incomes by 10% - 30% . 

We are pioneering a rent to store business model that works for small holder farmers. Our solution reduces food loss at aggregation points, introduces the use of crates for better produce handling, offers a low barrier to entry by enabling farmers to use cold storage without procuring any technology. 

We also offer market linkage services enabling buyers in urban markets to know the volume and type of produce that is in cold storage and link them to the farmers who own the produce. Our cold storages are solar powered and mobile thus unlocking low-carbon cold chain use.

There exists a number of companies that have developed exceptional offgrid cold storage technologies. What sets us apart is the the use of a proven technology to create a novel business model with a focus on unlocking the benefits of cold storage for smallholder farmers in horticultural valuechains. The use of the technology as a service, payment of a rental fee per kilogram stored, the integration of market linkage and smart aggregation are new elements that conventional technology developers have not ventured into. 

The cold storage is developed by Ecozen Solutions, a leading technology company based in India. they have developed an efficient system that provides cooling while incorporating humidification to ensure the shelflife and weight of produce stored is maintained. 

The Micro Cold Storage units is a portable cold chain room that accommodates 5-6 metric tonne of produce is small enough for a single farmer. It can be monitored remotely by the team and can be operated via an Android app by the farmer. System is constantly running. Can last upto 36hrs on backup battery.

The technology is already being utilized in India and Kenya. 

Article on Medium by Efficiency for Access - https://medium.com/efficiency-for-access/high-hopes-for-off-grid-cold-chain-solutions-in-rural-kenya-36ceb3ac6bc8

Technology Brochure - https://www.ecozensolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Ecofrost-brochure.pdf

Current people served. 

Pilot planned with 93 farmers. 

Number served in 1 year

First year we will serve 200 small holder farmers directly. 

Number served in 5 years

In 5 years we will be serving 10,000 small holder farmers directly per year. 

Our ambition is to prove and scale the novel business model of rent to store and market linkage. With a proven business model we aim to increase the number of avaiblae cold storages and serve more farmers. Our goal for the next year is to utilize 4 cold storages to serve farmers during the harvest season of Mangoes, Avocado and French beans. We seek to exponentially increase the number of offgrid rent to store cold storages to over 500 storages in 5 years serving over 10,000 farmers every 2 seasons in a year. 

Our most present barrier now is the COVID19 pandemic that has led to the disruption of supplychains and markets for the valuechains we work in. 

Our other barrier is the fragmentation of the value chain.

In five years our barrier to growth will be the ability to invest in capex. 

With regard to COVID19 we have began exploring new markets for the produce and digital engagement with farmers and value chain actors. 

On valuechain fragmentation we will harness the power of technology to design a platform that enables most of the valuechain actors to connect and communicate.

On CAPEX required to invest in additional cold storage systems we have began conversations with early stage investors with a view of securing seed funding.

Full Time Staff: 3

Part time staff: 4

SokoFresh team is part of the venture building team at Enviu, a venture building studio with over 15 years of experience building and scaling social ventures across developing markets. 

We work with the following;

 Trutrade, a buyer of avocado and Mangoes 

E-prod, a technology partner

Everest Enterprises, a french beans buyer and exporter

We look forward to Mentorship, access to a network of Solvers and winning funding.