Safi

East Africa faces the highest global incidence of milk-borne diseases, accounting for 72 million cases every year and an annual DALY (measure of overall disease burden, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill-health, disability or early death) of 88,870 years. Financially, the cost of illness related to these diseases in the region amounts to 53.6 million dollars per year. Alarmingly, a substantial portion of these cases, 28.8 million, and 30% of total deaths occur in children under 5 and pregnant women who heavily rely on milk for essential nutrients.

Unfortunately, this situation is only getting worse, with a 63% increase in milk-borne disease cases in East Africa. Contributing factors include climate change, which results in cows carrying more diseases such as brucellosis, mastitis and salmonella, and farmers turning to drought-resistant camels as livestock who carry MERS - a coronavirus with a 35% mortality rate.

The primary mode of disease transmission is through the consumption of raw milk. Currently, 90% of milk in East Africa is sold raw in the unregulated informal market due to the expense and inaccessibility of pasteurization methods. These pathogens can then propagate along the dairy value chain to the consumers, exacerbating the adverse effects of unsafe, unpasteurized milk. Raw milk causes 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized milk.

But unsafe milk is a global issue not limited to East Africa. There are an estimated 85 million total small-scale dairy farmers in East Africa, Middle East and Asia who do not have access to small scale pasteurization devices. Providing milk sellers with the means and education for effective pasteurization is crucial in addressing this pressing issue.

At Safi, we have created the worlds first off-the-grid pasteurization control unit targeted towards small holder farmers in East Africa. The device kills milk-borne diseases such as brucellosis, mastitis, salmonella, and even MERS, a coronavirus 10x deadlier than COVID-19, all while retaining the key nutrients in milk. It is compact, affordable, and allows farmers to easily pasteurize their daily yield in less than 3 minutes. 

It also includes a memory management feature that records crucial tracking information in regards to milk pasteurization to empower regulatory systems with secure and reliable information. It also revolutionizes operations for vendors, who can track their production and optimize their processes. 

The mission of Safi is two-fold: to provide safe drinking milk, especially to children and pregnant women who rely on milk for essential nutrients, and to help farmers rise out of poverty through the increased revenues from selling pasteurized milk. 

Safi has two core customers: rural small-scale dairy farmers and vendors/kiosks. Although these are the final users of the product, contracts will likely be sold to local NGOs, governments or cooperatives that have an established network of dairy stakeholders. These core customers benefit however as it will allow them to pasteurize milk at the lowest level of the supply chain and earn the benefits and premiums of selling processed milk which are currently being paid later in the supply chain to large processors. 

Our current partnerships give us access to many of the major dairy producing regions in East Africa. It is estimated that there are over 5.5 million dairy sellers/farmers that exist in these areas, representing a total opportunity of over $275 million alone. 

The problem of unsafe milk is one that is personal to one of the cofounders, Miraal Kabir. She grew up in Oman where she experienced a MERS outbreak as a child. She also saw firsthand the devastating impacts of unsafe food on young children when volunteering in Tanzania. These experiences set her and her peers out to finding a solution to unsafe milk, especially given that it mainly affects children and pregnant women.

The Safi team travelled to East Africa twice in just the last year for field testing and research to ensure that their product is meeting the needs of the communities they are working with. With two of the cofounders having a background in product and human centered design, implementing the communities ideas and agendas in the product and business model is central to all operations at the company.

Safi measures its impact and success by the number of lives it saves and the increased financial health for farmers. The specific metrics below are based on the 1 month pilot we completed from September to October in Kenya and Rwanda.

Traction based on our 1 month pilot in Kenya and Rwanda

• Number of customers: 11 

• Litres of pasteurized milk sold: 7500

• Amount of milk prevented from spoiling: 10%

• Number of individuals with access to safe milk: 1700

• Increased income for farmers: ~58%
  

• Number of workshops held: 3 workshops with over 100 farmers

• Number of women impacted: 11

• Number of jobs created: 3

• Electricity saved: 33%

More than funds, Safi is currently seeking guidance as it transitions from a pilot to scale phase. Specific guidance needed would be in terms or regulatory/legal guidance since we are distributing a health/food based product. Furthermore, financial support as we solidify our business model and transition from a non profit to a non profit/for profit hybrid business. This is our first time creating a product for the East African market and so mentorship from others who have done it before is invaluable for us at this stage. 

Safi is the world's first off-the-grid pasteurization device. It is unique because it is accessible to all farmers and small scale milk vendors no matter their literacy levels, access to electricity or location. 

Existing industrial pasteurization solutions require electricity to use, they are bulky, difficult to transport and require industrial-level training to operate. The Safi handle on the other hand relies on colour technology, only requires battery power to operate and it is made out of lightweight and recyclable materials, making it very portable. 

Substitutes that farmers and milk vendors are currently resorting to are either drinking their milk raw which has clear health threats, or boiling their milk 2-3 times before consumption. Although boiling kills pathogens in milk, it also causes the milk to lose much of its taste and essential nutrients.

There are currently no organizations targeting individual farmers with pasteurization devices. However, there have been proof of concepts designed by other startups such as The Sahar. There are also small scale pasteurization devices available on the market sold by AliBaba or AliExpress. However they all require on-the-grid electricity to use and cost upwards of 1,000 dollars, a cost that is unaffordable for small scale milk sellers. Safi on the other hand is powered by reusable batteries and costs less than a tenth of other small scale pasteurization devices. 

Another unique selling point to the Safi handle is its ability to help regulate the informal milk markets in target countries. In East Africa,  the informal dairy market represents 90% of all milk sales - the ministry can’t possibly regulate all of this volume and so needs a way to ensure that milk quality is high, even in the unregulated market. The Safi handle presents a low-cost solution to this problem.

• Number of customers

• Litres of pasteurized milk sold

• Amount of milk prevented from spoiling

• Number of individuals with access to safe milk

• Increased income for farmers

• Number of customers educated

• Number of women impacted

• Number of jobs created

• Electricity saved

The core technology can be broken down into hardware and software. The hardware pasteurization control unit monitors when milk has reached the appropriate conditions for pasteurization by measuring time and temperature. It conveys this information using a proprietary 3 coloured LED thermometer. The software tracks this information and sends it to farmers so that they can show a proof of pasteurization, and also sends it to regulators who can have a comprehensive view of the dairy supply chain and its safety. 

Full-time staff: 4

Part-time staff: 4

Contractor: 1

Cofounders: 3 years

Head of engineering and part-time staff: 2 years

Contractor: 6 months

The Safi cofounding team is diverse with two female cofounders including an immigrant and woman of colour. Encouraging diversity in our team and supporting under represented communities is at the core of who we are. As we grow our team, we strive to create a welcoming and empowering workplace environment that welcomes people from all walks of life and allows them to do their best work. We also make an effort to remove barriers that may have previously prevented individuals from marginalized groups the opportunity to work on similar projects.

Key Partners - Safi has key partnerships with government bodies and NGOs in its target markets to support regulation and marketing of the device. In Rwanda, our primary partner is the Rwandan National Dairy Platform, and in Kenya it is Core Health and Wealth, a local NGO.

Costs - The Safi device costs 30USD to produce which includes all material, manufacturing and labour costs. Current marketing costs are included in local partners' budgets for the piloting stage, but will be included in Safi’s budget for scaling.

Revenue - Safi generates revenue from 4 key sources

1. Device contracts: Safi sells its handles directly to milk vendors or to farmers through local partners at 50USD with a 40% margin for Safi. The average payback time is 1-2 weeks for buyers. 

2. Subscriptions to data: Safi offers a subscription based model to government entities and NGO’s to access the pasteurization data generated from using handles. This allows partners to regulate the safety of the milk in the market

3. Premium from farmer production: Because farmers are able to make approximately a 58% premium from selling pasteurized milk rather than raw milk, Safi is able to take approximately a 10% royalty from this premium every time the premium is generated as a source of recurring revenue.

4. Grants, corporate sponsorships and external funding

Customer Segments - 

1. Farmers and Milk Vendors using/purchasing the Safi device

2. Governmental bodies purchasing the memory management data subscription as well as large contracts of devices for local farmers

Through our hardware sales, data contracts and taking a premium from individual farmer production, our business model is sustainable and doesn't require external funding injections once we launch past the pilot stage. At the moment we have been funding ourselves through grants such as this one. However, in the long term our revenue streams will cover our expected costs. 

We have raised notable grant funding in the past from

Velocity Waterloo: 20k

ASME iShow: 13k

University Competitions: 10k