One of the main problems encountered by female farmers in Kenya and Uganda is that a lot of their produce goes to waste before it reaches the market. Usually, this is the case because of limited access to cold storage facilities as well as many other inefficiencies along the supply chain.
To help prevent avoidable post-harvest food loss and improve the livelihoods of rural families, a startup called Agricycle is working to build new business models that can save food that would otherwise be lost.
The company’s first venture has been a solar dehydrator, which the founders realized could be an effective way to help to tackle food waste. “We saw it as a larger model for how to use food loss as a tool for economic empowerment in villages across the world,” says founder Josh Shefner.
Compared to conventional dehydrators that rely on electricity, Agricycle’s design consists of a simple container that heats up in the sun while protecting the fruit inside. At first, the startup planned to just provide the technology, but then it decided to take it a step further and develop the whole supply chain and market.
And that’s how Jali Fruit Co was born, which buys the dried fruit from the farmers, packages it as snacks, and sells it in the US. Some 35,000 farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are now using the dehydrators to sell their excess fruits.
“We work with nonprofits to train women on how to use them, help them establish independent bank accounts, and connect them to microfinance,” says Shefner. “We’ve created just under 7,000 livelihoods to date, and they make between seven to 10 times the average daily wage.”
As part of the process, trucks collect the fruit from remote farms, and then the final product is packaged at strategic locations. “We’re making sure the value addition happens locally,” adds Shefner.
Another brand launched by Agricycle is called Tropical Ignition. It uses coconut shells and palm kernels to make an alternative to charcoal. This not only reduces deforestation by preventing trees from being felled for wood but the product also burns more cleanly, with less smoke.
