Mvutu

Over 48% of farmers' production never reaches the market and this loss is spread across the entire value chain from farm to market due to poor transport and storage. The low agricultural yield is caused by the lack of training, inputs, agricultural credits to smallholders.
We work with farmers and offer them everything they need: finance training, agricultural inputs, insurance, while optimizing their production opportunities from 0.5 to 7 tonnes / hectare, reducing post-harvest losses by 48% to 10% thanks to our storage warehouses powered by solar energy and the end-to-end distribution of their products.

Mvutu generates income for communities and stabilizes the local economy by using cold storage and improved processing to reduce the risk of crop and post-harvest loss.

Every farmer, wherever he or she is, deserves the opportunity to grow profitably, and that is not the norm today. There are more than 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide, and average agricultural yields per hectare in Africa are only 10-20% of those in North America. Mvutu exists to change that.
Mvutu was developed to help 470 million farmers in developing countries who do not have access to the cold room. Farmers lose 48% of their vegetable crops, 35% of their fruit and vegetable crops and 25% of their income due to the lack of cold rooms.

Mvutu is the first agriculture platform that offers smallholders training in modern agricultural techniques, greenhouse cultivation, drip irrigation agricultural, inputs, advice, insurance, and microfinance to increase and improve their production from 0.5 to 7 tonnes per hectare. We guarantee the sale of their products using our refrigeration supply chain powered by solar energy to minimize post-harvest losses from 48% to 10%. Our solar warehouses can store fruits, vegetables, eggs and chickens for 2 to 30 days. We have a growing number of customers which include hotels, wholesalers, local vendors, restaurants and supermarkets in Brazzaville.

The cold storage facilities are powered by solar energy and professional handling guarantees high quality of fresh produce, and modern green technology is applied in all activities, such as solar energy and biodiesel for irrigation and greenhouses, cooling and transportation.
Farmers in our network regularly receive location-specific weather information, also delivered in their local language. These weather updates come from around 80 weather stations across the country, ensuring accurate forecasts.

Over 60% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa are small farmers and around 23% of the region's GDP comes from agriculture.

In 2020 more than 500 rural farmers were able to keep their employment multiplied by 5 in agricultural operations and increase their income to 85%.

By introducing greenhouses, drip irrigation, cold chain logistics, we are increasing our farmers and breeders from 0.5 to 7 tonnes per hectare. Our field teams work above all on training and the fight against bad practices.
Our innovation is a modular cold room powered by solar energy, for off-grid storage 24/7 and the conservation of perishable food. It adequately addresses the problem of postharvest loss of perishable food by extending their shelf life from 2 days to 21 days. We have already stored 50 tonnes of fruit and vegetables thanks to our refrigeration solution.
Reduce pollution and carbon emissions by managing cold chain logistics and other activities with solar energy, biogas production.
   The current annual consumption of foodstuffs amounts to 242 million dollars, or 169.4 million for imported products, more than 3 billion dollars in Central Africa.

Mvutu is developing affordable technologies to help farmers increase their productivity, improving yield and minimizing losses. We bring together everything a farmer needs: drip irrigation, greenhouse cultivation, financing, agricultural inputs, advice, and market access.
We use cold storage facilities and professional handling to ensure high quality of fresh produce and modern green technology is applied in all activities, such as irrigation, greenhouses, cooling and transportation.
We aggregate, produce and distribute using modern techniques in mobile technology.

Mvutu uses machine learning and automated operations technology to offer a combination of products to farmers, including financing, data analysis for higher yields, advice and optimized options for purchasing key inputs, equipment and insurance.
Our digital model has allowed us to continue working in partnership with farmers to produce more food, despite the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19.

We are solving the problem of post-harvest losses. About 4.5 million tonnes ($ 600 million) of products are wasted in the Congo (230 million tonnes in sub-Saharan Africa) each year. This is due to poor handling and inadequate transport vehicles, lack of storage facilities on farms and markets and intermediaries who pay farmers unfairly at low prices.
The innovation focuses on a unique business model through the use of cold chain logistics to improve the handling, storage and transport of products, as well as the adaptation to climate change reinforced by the use of greenhouses in production. We work with farmers, optimizing their production opportunities, reducing post-harvest losses while optimizing end-to-end storage and distribution.
Our uniqueness comes from the use of cold storage facilities and professional handling which guarantees the high quality of fresh products from the farm to the end consumer and the use of organic farming is applied in all activities agricultural.

The solution: walk-in cold rooms with solar energy for 24/7 storage and conservation
EXTENDS THE SHELF LIFE OF PERISHABLE FOOD FROM 2 DAYS TO 21
Our innovation, Mvutu, is a walk-in cold room, modular and powered by solar energy, for off-grid storage 24/7 and the conservation of perishable food. It adequately addresses the problem of post-harvest losses in fruits, vegetables and other perishable foods. Mvutua is installed in the main food production and consumption centers (markets and farms), farmers place their products in clean plastic boxes, these plastic boxes are stacked inside the cold room. This extends the freshness of fruits, vegetables and other perishable foods from 2 days to around 21 days. The solar-powered walk-in cold room is made up of 120 mm cold room insulation panels to retain the cold. The energy from the solar panels mounted on the roof of the cold room is stored in large capacity batteries, these batteries power an inverter which in turn powers the refrigeration unit.

FLEXIBLE PAY-AS-YOU-STORE MODEL
Coldhubs offers farmers a flexible pay-as-you-store subscription model. In preparation for storage, farmers transfer their perishable food to our reusable boxes, which fit perfectly on the shelves. Farmers pay a daily fee for each case of food they store.

We were confronted with challenges with the storage of the products which led us to find the solution to use the logistics of the cold chain in solar.

Currently, cold chain logistics have not been adopted in Congo by fruit and vegetable producers. This is greatly contributed to less access to these technologies and to poor agricultural techniques by smallholders.

However, we have visited various companies outside of the Congo, including Charlie's Produce (http://www.charliesproduce.com/) in Seattle, USA, which has successfully applied cold chain logistics over the years. to increase the shelf life of products, thus generating high income and very good profits
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Benefits of solar cold storage
The biggest benefit of a solar cold storage unit is reduced dependency on grid supply or diesel. India’s abundant solar energy ensures that sufficient power can be saved in the battery or storage units associated with the setup, which can be used in low-light days without hiccups (like monsoons). Alternatively, it cuts down on the various costs associated with diesel generators. As a result, producers using traditional systems can reduce their operational costs by at least 20 per cent.
Post-harvest food spoilage rate is reduced by 80 per cent. Among the different varieties of produce, leafy vegetables and fruits must be stored carefully. Such items with high water content can get easily spoiled otherwise. With consistent power, solar cold storages can increase the crop shelf-life by up to 10 days. Farmers can store their vegetables for longer until they get the right price.

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So far we have gained recognition and awards nationally and internationally that appreciate the company's goals, its impact and its bright future.

Our continuous growth and increasing turnover since the start of the company's activities also indicate that the company is sustainable and potential.
From the start, we have been able to increase the income of the smallholders with whom we have worked, from an average of USD 500 to USD 2,900 on average.
On the one hand, we provide farmers with everything they need to succeed in their projects in terms of financial and technical need, which allows them to increase and improve yields and agricultural production from 0.5 to 7 tonnes per hectare. On the other hand, our distribution and cold storage system can minimize post-harvest losses by 48 to 10%.
With better storage mechanisms and better farming techniques, the impact will multiply and reach more farmers. This solution was developed to help 470 million farmers in developing countries who do not have access to the cold room. Farmers lose 45% of their vegetable crops, 35% of their fruit crops and 25% of their income due to the lack of cold rooms.

Currently, cold chain logistics have not been adopted in the Congo by fruit and vegetable producers. This is greatly contributed to less access to these technologies and poor farming techniques by smallholders.
We carry out the treatment by cleaning, packaging and distributing on local markets. We use the most advanced technologies, including solar cold storage facilities to store fruits and vegetables, eggs, chickens to increase shelf life, and refrigerated trucks to distribute to customers.
We provide support to farmers with greenhouses and irrigation systems, training, and financing so that they can grow high value products. We have an increasing number of customers which include hotels, restaurants and supermarkets in Brazzaville.

Currently we have improved the standard of living of 500 smallholder farmers by multiplying their income by 5.

We envisage going to 10,000 farmers in 1 year to have a considerable impact on the greatest number of rural farmers, most of whom live below the poverty line according to the study of the Mandilal Bank.
In 5 years we plan to have the largest network of farmers in the Congo with 50,000 farmers and produce 60 percent of food products in Cong.

 Purchase of refrigerated trucks to complete the use of the cold store under construction

-Expansion by buying and installing more greenhouses to work with more farmers and make them benefit more

- Establishment of a modern point of sale which will facilitate distribution and increase our income while offering employment to more people

- Establishment of collection centers in different regions of the country to facilitate the aggregation of farmers' products.

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It is still the growing middle class and the wealthy who make up 10% of the population. They don't want to go to the local market. By the end of the year, we will start making home deliveries to serve this market because we can see the demand for it. There is no official retailer dedicated to fresh products. A store that sells only fresh produce - all over the Congo. We plan to launch such a store in September.

We will strive to reach our target revenues and remain sustainable by guaranteeing strictly high quality and reliable products throughout the year.

We will also ensure the presence of a solid management team and a board of directors to ensure the achievement of our set objectives.

By expanding into international markets, we will increase our revenues and reduce exposure to commercial risks.

Our company will maintain good relationships with smallholders, which will benefit both the company and the farmers.

Use of marketing strategies, good customer service and reliable distribution techniques, including the use of e-commerce to increase sales
Next steps.

We need a lot of funding, especially for cold storage facilities, the acquisition of greenhouses, drip irrigation systems, a tractor to prepare the land for farmers in our network increase our portfolio of agricultural microcredit to integrate more farmers into our network we have registered more than 20,000 small farmers who want to work with us.

We would like to remove intermediaries completely from the supply chain, but we do not have enough storage capacity. We cannot keep all the products we get from farmers, and if we don't sell them on time, they can rot and get lost. Our current storage facility can hold 10 tonnes, which is very small and forces us to sell to avoid losses due to deterioration.

The retail sector in the Congo is still very informal.
Traditionally, people would go to a local market, maybe on weekends, to buy fruit, vegetables, eggs and chickens, and they basically walked around and trying to pick out what looked good and ripe. The disadvantages of local markets are that they are often dirty and that there is a shortage of certain products in certain seasons.

We also need technical expertise in terms of setting up systems that we can use to monitor incoming and outgoing volumes, to develop a system of paying agricultural credits by mobile money. Finally, we need experienced staff at a reasonable cost, especially as we grow.

Our continuous growth and increasing turnover since the start of the company's activities also indicate that the company is sustainable and potential.

We have a few investors on board to help us with this expansion. Some investors have committed approximately $ 2,000,000 which they could inject into the business in the future, which will allow us to increase our network to 10,000 smallholder farmers.

But we are building a 1,000 m2 storage facility in Brazzaville which can contain up to 400 tonnes of products. We also want to have our own distribution trucks, motorcycles and bikes so that we can serve more customers and gradually eliminate middlemen from our supply chain. We have done business in the most difficult environment in the past two half years.
With better storage mechanisms and better farming techniques, the impact will multiply and reach more farmers.

We are currently recruiting experienced staff to set up an agricultural microcredit system using mobile money.
We are working in partnership with a local telephone operator to make use of a mobile-based sales system offering SMS to women sellers of DEAL-OF-THE-DAY. Mobile agents register-mobile and create profiles of farmers. Female sellers receive push SMS with attractive offers on basic foods at wholesale prices and use return calls to confirm orders.

5 full-time employees in administration proposing strategies for the overall management of the company. 

10 part-time employees in the field in contact with the farmers in our network. Our teams in the field work above all on training and the fight against bad practices.

We are a team of software engineers, data scientists, economists and operators with extensive experience. We appreciate taking risks at the service of a radical scale, attentive listening and a tireless commitment to understanding our customers and their needs.
Divine Arnaud Kouebatouka
Serial Visionary entrepreneur Industrial systems engineer specialist in solar energy • Commercial and financial planner • Blockchain enthusiast • Investor and partner relations • Innovation network •
CEO of Green Tech Africa leader in environment and solar energy in Congo with more than 2000 electrified house.

Participated and animated numerous seminars in collaboration with donors (IMF, World Bank, FMO, UNDP ...) on the problem of financing SMEs and small farmers in rural areas ...

Merveil Mavougou
Professional with 5 years of experience in the financial sector and a good knowledge of the business of investment banking, commercial banking and specialized financial services. Responsible for blueCongou, a 100% electric car park of the Bolloré Group.

Roland Alavo is the founder and CEO of RabTech
Android Development · Web Development · Custom Software Development · Mobile Application Development · Training · Leadership Development ·

Bahamboula wilde Ingenieur agronomist 10 of experience at Eco oil is a visionary leader dedicated to making farming work for small farmers. Passionate about agriculture, he is able to mobilize the talents of others to solve problems thanks to his unshakable conviction that technology can transform agriculture for the benefit of millions of farmers.

To achieve the objectives mentioned above:
Mvutu is looking for an experienced credit manager to help us grow quickly to reach millions of small farmers and ensure solid repayment and a unitary economy as we evolve. In this role, you will assume strategic and operational ownership for the full life cycle of repayment, pricing and product design optimized for solid repayment, ensuring that we collect loans efficiently and that we maintain a strong unity economy. You will work within the Apollo teams to develop our portfolio both quickly and sustainably, from product design and data science to risk management and collections. It is a high-level position with significant leadership responsibility.

Mvutu helps farmers in emerging markets increase their profits. We use agricultural machine learning, remote sensing and mobile technology to help farmers access credit, high-quality agricultural inputs and personalized advice. Our first product is a personalized set of agricultural inputs, agricultural advice and credits provided to farmers in the Congo thus increasing and improving their production from 0.5 to 7 tonnes / hectare. We have multiplied by 5 the income of small farmers from the 500 small farmers in our network.

Farmers either work on their own land or participate in a small-scale franchise model, cultivating ready-made land from Mvutu.

The company buys fruits and vegetables, eggs, broiler chickens, from small farmers at fair prices and transforms them by cleaning, sorting, packaging and marketing. We have a growing number of customers which include hotels, wholesalers, local vendors, restaurants and supermarkets in Brazzaville. .
Mvutu has increased US $ 10,000 in savings and made it a business earning well over US $ 300,000 in the past 12 months.

Cold storage facilities and professional handling guarantee high quality of fresh produce, and modern green technology is applied in all activities, such as solar energy for irrigation and greenhouses, cooling and reducing transportation post-harvest losses from 48% to 10% while optimizing end-to-end storage and distribution.

We need technical expertise in terms of setting up systems that we can use to monitor incoming and outgoing volumes, to develop a system of paying agricultural credits by mobile money. Finally, we need experienced staff at a reasonable cost, especially as we grow.

I am convinced that being a solver is much more than just financing. When we join the MIT-supported network, we will receive nine months of personalized assistance from Solve staff and members of the Solve cross-sector community. Thanks to these connections, we will build the partnerships necessary to speed up our work, validate our impact and our business model and develop our solution.

To reach the goals mentioned above, Mvutu seeks partnerships to:

- Purchase of refrigerated trucks to complete the use of the cold store under construction

- Expansion by buying and installing more greenhouses to work with more farmers and make them benefit more

- Establishment of a modern point of sale which will facilitate distribution and increase our income while offering employment to more people

- Create marketing collateral and an outreach strategy for proactively targeting municipalities and commercial real estate

We need any organization or person who will help us meet these challenges. The substantial impact on improving food security and empowering farmers through market linkages, drawn from exceptional local entrepreneurs.

The company provides a stable and fair market for horticultural crops by aggregating supply and demand and improving cold chain distribution and storage infrastructure that reduces post-harvest losses and increases availability and quality products on local markets.

In the Congo, we have many refugees who have fled the civil wars in the Congo in the refugee pool department of the Congo, the DRC, Central Africa and Rwanda.
The Andan Prize for Innovation will allow us to recruit 2,000 refugees who will be trained in modern agriculture and will receive agricultural credits, seeds, land, greenhouses, drip irrigation systems, training and advice for new agricultural practice to increase and improve their production from 0.5 to 7 tonnes per hectare. Thanks to our cold stores, they will be able to reduce post-harvest losses from 48% to 10% and increase their income to 85%.

The Andan prize for innovation will also allow us to recruit 500 refugees as sellers of our products in town, eggs, broilers, fruits, and vegetables for professional integration, thus taking these refugees out of precarious poverty.
Mvutu uses machine learning and automated operations technology to offer a combination of products to farmers, including financing, data analysis for higher yields, advice and optimized options for purchasing key inputs, equipment and insurance.
Our digital model has allowed us to continue working in partnership with farmers to produce more food, despite the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19.

The Innovation for Women Prize will allow us to increase our network to more than 5000 women farmers who will receive agricultural credits, seeds, greenhouses, drip irrigation systems, training and advice for new agricultural practices to increase and improve their production from 0.5 to 7 tonnes per hectare. Thanks to our cold stores, they will be able to reduce post-harvest losses from 48% to 10% and increase their income to 85%.

The Innovation for Women Prize will also allow us to computerize the supply chain for pioneering small-scale food products of an M sales solution in the agricultural sector. Mvutu enables m-commerce of basic foodstuffs we have developed a mobile sales system allowing poor women traders in urban centers to “buy in bulk” basic foodstuffs while we create a local network, wholesale markets urban workers to reorganize the trade of basic foodstuffs in Congo, a model relevant for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa in general. Thanks to our mobile sales solution, Mvutu helps African countries meet their food security challenges.
 along poor infrastructure. With strictly on-the-phone services now a reality. We are convinced that the TOTAL promise of the benefits of USING THE MOBILE PHONE could be further exploited by undertaking light and surgically relevant interventions to stimulate / enhance Mvutu. Mobile agents register-mobile and create profiles of street vendors 600 WOMEN. Female sellers receive push SMS with attractive offers on basic foods at wholesale prices and use return calls to confirm orders.

Mvutu uses machine learning and automated operations technology to offer a combination of products to farmers, including financing, data analysis for higher yields, advice and optimized options for purchasing key inputs, equipment and insurance.

Our digital model has allowed us to continue working in partnership with farmers to produce more food, despite the unprecedented disruption of COVID-19.

We are solving the problem of post-harvest losses. About 4.5 million tonnes ($ 600 million) of products are wasted in the Congo (230 million tonnes in sub-Saharan Africa) each year. This is due to poor handling and inadequate transport vehicles, lack of storage facilities on farms and markets and intermediaries who pay farmers unfairly at low prices.

If we win The AI for Humanity Prize we will increase our network to more than 10,000 farmers thus computerized the Supply Chain for small scale food products pioneering a sales solution M in the agricultural sector. Mvutu enables m-commerce of basic foodstuffs we have developed a mobile sales system allowing poor women traders in urban centers to “buy in bulk” basic foodstuffs while we create a local network, wholesale markets urban workers to reorganize the trade of basic foodstuffs in Congo, a model relevant for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa in general. Thanks to our mobile sales solution, Mvutu helps African countries meet their food security challenges.
 M-Brokerage + Efficient Logistics = A transformation model for agricultural trade in Africa mVutu is the pioneer of a model that we call "mVutuDistribution mobile + light" which is particularly relevant for Africa - where rapid mobile penetration prevails. along poor infrastructure. With strictly on-the-phone services now a reality. We are convinced that the TOTAL promise of the benefits of USING THE MOBILE PHONE could be further exploited by undertaking light and surgically relevant interventions to stimulate / enhance Mvutu.