What is the name of your organization?
Skin Gourmet
What is the name of your solution?
Power to Process
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
A circular system that equips African communities to process raw materials locally, grow income, and build long-term prosperity.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Accra, Ghana
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Ghana
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
Africa exports over 80% of its raw materials without processing them locally, leading to vast losses in income, jobs, and long-term economic resilience. This system has created deep inequalities: smallholder farmers and local communities remain poor, despite producing globally demanded resources like shea, cocoa, and groundnuts.
In Ghana, over 3 million smallholder farmers face a lack of access to processing infrastructure, reliable market data, and global certifications. As a result, they rely on intermediaries who extract raw goods and leave behind minimal value. Most communities are unable to move beyond subsistence, and youth face limited job opportunities, driving urban migration and generational poverty.
The global scale is even more severe: more than 500 million smallholder farmers in under-resourced contexts are excluded from value-added trade. They are also highly vulnerable to climate shocks, yet lack the financial cushion or technology to adapt.
A critical factor contributing to this problem is the absence of localized processing and certification frameworks—meaning raw materials are undervalued, underpriced, and unsustainable in the long term. Without systems to retain value and build resilience, communities remain trapped in economic dependency.
What is your solution?
Power to Process is a scalable model that equips African communities to process their own raw materials, retain value locally, and build economic resilience. We build eco-conscious facilities in farming communities and train residents to transform raw goods—like shea nuts, groundnuts, and cocoa—into certified, high-value products ready for global markets.
Each facility includes cold-pressing machines, quality control labs, and clean cookstoves to reduce emissions during production. We also provide training in food safety, business management, and regenerative agricultural practices to improve both the quality and sustainability of raw materials.
To ensure global competitiveness, we help communities meet Organic and Fair Trade certification standards. This increases the price they can charge, while unlocking direct-to-market pathways without relying on extractive intermediaries.
Technology is adapted to local context—low-energy machinery, decentralized logistics, and certification software for traceability and compliance. These are intentionally selected to reduce environmental impact and ensure ease of use.
The goal is not just to process products, but to process prosperity—by enabling communities to build generational wealth through ownership, infrastructure, and market access.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Power to Process directly serves smallholder farmers, women, and young people in underserved rural communities across Ghana and, eventually, other parts of Africa. These communities grow valuable crops like shea, groundnuts, and cocoa but have historically lacked the tools, infrastructure, and market access to profit from them. Most farmers earn just enough to survive, while their raw materials are exported and processed elsewhere for significant profit.
Women—who often do the harvesting and pre-processing—are especially underpaid, overworked, and excluded from decision-making and ownership. Youth face high unemployment, leading to migration and generational cycles of poverty.
Our solution gives these communities the power to process their own raw materials into high-value, certified products. By building facilities where they live and offering tailored training in production, quality assurance, and global standards, we create new jobs, increase income by up to 300%, and promote shared ownership.
Farmers and communities move from being raw material suppliers to value creators. Women gain leadership opportunities, youth gain skilled employment, and communities gain the dignity and power to shape their own future—economically, socially, and environmentally.
