Soko foods for Urban-Uganda

Despite the immense food volumes produced; Uganda is still grappling with off-farm postharvest losses (PHLs), household food insecurity, malnutrition, and poor food waste management. This entwined problem is partly attributed to: (i) inefficient food marketing and distribution chain leading to production delays and PHLs at the market, (ii) consumer ignorance on the healthy and nutritious food requirements. Therefore, Soko foods is aimed at creating an inclusive food system that focuses on reducing market-based food postharvest losses, boost socio-economic progress, increase food access, advance household nutritional health and food waste management. Soko-Foods encompasses an off-system postharvest handling (PHH) at the local retail market level and an online-system (Soko-App) that provides a fresh food delivery system, a nutritional health program, and a sustainable food waste-management sensitization program. Adaptation of Soko foods will indeed reduce PHLs, improve household food security and nutrition, create financial freedom for farmers and in turn boost sustainable agriculture.

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) registers approximately 40-50% of food PHLs worth over US$4 billion annually, the amount of food wasted each year at the household level and due to food PHLs is enough to feed the total number of malnourished people, with four in ten deaths of children under five years attributed to undernutrition. Additionally, household food insecurity, food waste and malnutrition are increasingly becoming an entwined triple burden in Uganda, with household adult obesity reported as an emerging public health concern in peri-urban and urban areas including Kampala city.

Furthermore; the household food availability in Uganda is still a challenge attributed to off-farm and market-oriented on-farm activities despite the immense food volumes produced. About 5-7% of food is wasted as PHLs at retail market level, and about 5-10% of produce is lost due to overabundance, and food waste at household level accounts for 37.8% of urban solid waste in Kampala alone, ending in landfills thus producing a large amount of methane which is a harmful greenhouse gas to the environment.    Ultimately, this paradox has created the need to develop a sustainable market food distribution or supply pyramid that encompasses PHH, food access, nutrition and food waste management for agricultural production.

Soko-Foods, a mobile-based food distribution platform bridging households to retail markets providing convenient access to fresh-farm and market produce, nutrition health and proper food waste management techniques using the Soko-App. The app is developed and supported by Badaye Technologies, a Ugandan-based technological start-up company that develops and improves innovative but scalable ideas to life. Soko-Foods encompasses an on-ground system for PHH at local retail market level and an online-system that provides a fresh food delivery system, nutritional health program, and sustainable food waste management sensitization program. During operation, a subscribed user places in an order for food from the preferred market place or opts for an automatic app search for the nearest market place. The order is then received in the system and immediately sent to our food safety and quality monitoring personal stationed at each local market. The personnel will process the order through the vendors or farmers in that specific market who are subscribed to and certified by our platform. After processing, delivery of the order is effected based on the client’s location using the Soko-bike having a modified food carrier and a connected internet of things sensor for the customer to track the order in real-time.

The target solution is aimed at improving the livelihoods of three parties. I) Food vendors of markets residing in peri-urban Uganda such as Nakasero, Kasubi, Kalerwe market among others. These vendors spend over 14 hours a day in one location waiting for consumers to buy their produce. In most cases, vendors in proximity to the road get higher purchases than their counterparts but in turn pay higher leasing fees. Soko foods will provide an additional source of income for the vendors and yet they don’t have to incur any initial costs. ii) Soko-bike transporters; motorcycles in Uganda are the most dominant means of transportation in Uganda since they offer door-to-door services, transporters of food from the vendors to consumers will have employment. iii) Soko foods will provide convenience to the end consumers who won’t have to go to the market to purchase the food produce. Furthermore; the App will have an inbuilt artificial intelligence system to track the nutrition of the consumer and advice on what produce to purchase, and how much it costs. Ultimately, implementation of Soko foods will positively impact the lives of all the three parties in the food chain.

Soko Foods is aimed at digitizing the supply line, and making foods convenient, easy and accessible to the end users. These will reduce food losses, boost and power businesses of the market vendors and in turn reduce food wastage and disposal.

A similar transportation model is applied by Jumia foods, an online platform that links customers to local restaurants currently operating in Uganda, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Kenya. However, Jumia food doesn’t connect customers to fresh agricultural produce in markets and doesn’t keep track, advice or sensitize customers on their nutritional diet, a gap which Soko foods is intending to fill with the aid of our nutritionists on the team. We adopted their (Jumia) proven working model of transportation using motorcycles (boda boda) and leveraged it to serve our purpose. Currently; there is no other fresh agricultural produce transporter in Uganda (intended country of implementation), which provides us an opportunity to be the pioneers of the fresh agricultural food transportation industry in the country.  

The Soko-App is the core technology of the solution. It has an inbuilt food rewards algorithm that awards points based on user activeness in using the platform, above a set threshold; it permits free or discounted food rewards.  Nutrition-wise, the App; uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to tailor nutritional health diets, food tips, interpret user feeding data and also simplify nutrition planning based on user current feeding data and scientific evidence for users wanting to achieve specific nutrition goals. Additionally, it allows premium users to have a one-on-one scheduled and interactive session with our nutrition health coaches for further consultancy hence promoting a healthy user network and urban population. Furthermore, the app uses AI algorithms to tailor pre-ordered food waste management tips as well as link users to food waste collectors and processors.

Currently; we are at the initial stage of implementation. The functionality of the App on google store is evidence of our claims. Additionally; we are in process of writing an academic paper for the first stage of our work and showing the next steps.

Adaptation of Soko foods provides a platform for the market vendors to sell their produce without investing recurring rental costs, this implies that more produce is sold and therefore reduction in PHLs, food disposal and wastage. As time progresses, the market vendors will definitely sell more produce, hence an increase in the profits which in turn improves their livelihoods. Additionally, the operators of Soko-bike (motorcycle) also have more earning tasks to perform which increases their daily income. Furthermore; the end-consumer has convenience of food purchase, save time which would have been spent in identifying the appropriate food, and moving to the market to purchase yet receiving daily notifications and tips on their diet with advice on what produce to consume. This reduces malnutrition and provides awareness of the community on their nutritional health.

Currently, we are testing our solution on 3 market vendors from one market (Kasubi Market) and 10 end users. The small size is allowing us to improve the platform through trial and error. In a year from now, we anticipate to have acquired at-least 80 percent of Market vendors from Kasubi Market which accounts for about 1200 vendors who serve an estimate of 20,000 end-consumers. Five years from now; we hope to have covered other five main markets in Kampala that includes Nankulabye, Nakasero, Kalerwe, Owino and Wandegeya Market, with an estimate of 10,000 market vendors serving 1,000,000 customers. It should noted that vendors in Ugandan Markets always sale an average of 5 kgs of produce each, making it possible to serve a larger number of consumers.

The main objective of Soko foods is to create an inclusive food system that focuses on reducing market-based food postharvest losses, boost socio-economic progress, increase food access, advance household nutritional health and food waste management. This is achieved by; i) developing a mobile-based platform to create market and transport linkages or supply chain for fresh farm foods from the market to the kitchen, and provide a consumer-user centered nutritional health program complemented by healthy diets derived from fresh farm foods. ii) disseminating post-harvest handling and food safety knowledge and technologies at the market level.  iii) integrating and support a food waste management system right from the household or consumer level back to the garden for agricultural production. As stated earlier, in our first year we hope to have fully covered one market (Kasubi), and have monetized Soko foods. Then in the 5-year period, we have a million customer goal (1,000,000 customers), and we hope to be profitable then.

Our biggest challenge is sensitizing the market vendors to adopt and sell produce on our platform. Market vendors in Uganda have been selling their produce the same way on the market their entire existence, having them to adopt and turst this new form of trade is (currently) and will still be a challenge. Then customer acquisition is another challenge, since the success of the project is solely based on how many customers use the services. Finally, expansion of the project to serve the million customer goal at during the 5-year period will also be cumbersome, since there needs to be an organized ecosystem to fully satisfy such a number.

Sensitization of the market vendors is tackled in four steps. The first step was to have questionnaires across 100 market vendors from 4 markets (Kalerwe, Kasubi, Nankulabye and Nakasero), inquiring on how best the platform should be developed for their convenience, then the second step (currently on) is having a developed app and testing it on 3 market vendors, going back and forth while rectifying errors. The third step is to use the already acquired market vendors as our ambassadors to the whole of the market, paying them a commission for each sign up they bring on board (commission is only applicable for the first market). Finally, apply the same three steps to the other markets. This approach was chosen because we believe the market vendors will trust more a person among them because they believe he or she has their best interest at heart. For customer acquisition, currently we are using a pre-revenue approach till the end of the first year to attract more users, gain brand and reputation, we believe having the best services is our best endorsement therefore we shall allot less resources to advertisement and focus more on perfecting the product, which will pull more customers through word-of-mouth. Finally, for challenge of expansion we shall choose one market vendor per market who will also be a full employee for Soko foods to always provide feedback during the monthly meetings and will be the channel to access the market.

n/a

Currently we have 10 individuals working on the team. This includes 2 contractors, 3 part-time staff and 5 full time staff.

Isaac Oluk (Team lead), he is committed and multi-displinary bringing together a skill set and knowledge in engineering, post-harvest handling, human nutrition, information and communications technology, business, research and developments, with undergoing plans to fill the gaps in business administration, financial management and marketing.

Ismael Mayanja: Ismael is a postharvest graduate researcher based at the University of California, Davis.He is responsible for developing postharvest handling and food safety protocols used at market level.

Kigozi Joseph: Joseph is a computer scientist with a 3-year field experience in mobile application development who leads the development of Soko-App.

Elizabeth Kiconco: She is a human nutritionist, who is responsible for the nutrition side of Soko-App development.

Alex Ssewanyana: He is an Agricultural engineer with over 5 years working experience in the agriculture sector. He is responsible to testing postharvest protocols at field level.

Kamulegeya Ibrahim: He is an automotive engineer by profession, who leads the development and management of Soko-bikes.

Buwembo Sula: Sula has over 10 years’ experience in fabrication, leads the workshop production team.

Currently, Badaye Technologies is taking the initiative to solely work on Soko foods since it’s at the early stages of prototype building.

Our goal is to use a pre-revenue approach for the first year in operation to attract more users, gain brand and reputation then gradually invoke in ways to generate income. Then, Soko-foods will be monetized using two models. i) Commission-based pay model; where farmers or market vendors shall pay a fee for the service and benefits rendered by Soko-Foods including PHH training, technology, advertisement and ready market. Based on the baseline survey during pilot, the plan is to first test a tentative 7% commission on each supply that qualifies the minimum set threshold to be supplied or delivered to the consumer. Adjustments will be made to come into terms of the behavior and favorable commission rate based on the market response without getting out of business. ii) Premium package charge, where we shall offer extra services such as accessing food, nutrition health tips, and food waste handling tips with users who pay a few in addition to the general free subscription. This way we are catering for both users who can and can’t afford the premium subscription

We are applying to Solve to two main reason. First, to get financial support to take us through the next year of implementation of our project. Then, to gain advice on scalability of our project, expansion may be the most exciting but also the toughest stage for any company, wrong propaganda may lead to collapse paving way for new companies and competitors to leverage the exposed market gap, having consultancy in that aspect will be  vital to our success.

We need advice and support in the following aspects: Business model; we are not profitable yet and still brain storming of the best approach to have a cash flow positive balance sheet. Funding or revenue model; due to our anticipation of expanding to the whole of East Africa, we shall definitely need to raise capital and reach out to investors when the time comes. Marketing, media and exposure; We believe that having the best product and services is the best endorsement. However, public relations and portrayal to the media is a field we are still adopting to.

We hope to partner with Safe Boda, it’s a Ugandan based company that transports individuals door to door using a web based app, safe Boda has an ecosystem of motorcycles and a reputation of good services we hope to leverage to transport food through the same means.