Despite over ¾ of Africans being farmers or children of farmers, not every African is able to eat three meals per day. Most of that is due to post-harvest losses, with up to ⅓ of the grain and almost ½ of all the fruit and vegetables grown never making it to a plate to eat.
Because of the post-harvest losses, Africa spends tens of billions of dollars per year importing food. Ending this downward spiral of mounting debt ends when Africa is a net exporter of food.
There is far too much friction in funding the existing, homegrown, for-profit solutions to hunger and poverty too often ignored by financial institutions. Not just initial funding, but growth-stage funding and critical financial services.
A solution for all these issues is Africa Eats, a holding company with a diverse set of African food/ag companies supporting hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers, feeding millions of Africans.
Africa Eats does not try solving this problem from scratch, but instead begins with two dozen fledglings (graduates) of Fledge, the global network of conscious company accelerators. Dozens of young, for-profit, growing companies chosen from thousands as most likely to succeed, with impact embedded in their product or service, and who have all received two months of intense training, capital, and follow-on support. Companies which in 2022 earned over $24 million in aggregate revenues and which worked directly with over 100,000 smallholder farmers.
See how it works in more detail and contact us if you are interested in owning a piece of this fast-growing portfolio or if you can help us grow these companies even faster.
In Kenya, approximately 82% of the population cooks with biomass (wood and charcoal). Kencoco makes and sells charcoal briquettes from recycled agricultural coconut waste (coconut shells, husks) and charcoal fines left over from destructive charcoal trade. The charcoal briquettes are a viable low-cost alternative to environmentally damaging fuels such as firewood, kerosene and wood charcoal...
Uganda is an agricultural economy, 89% of the citizens are smallholder farmers creating 69% of the GDP. Smallholder farmers spend a considerable share of their income on inputs, plus quite a lot of additional debt. Limited capital and poor access to agricultural inputs clearly constrains farmer productivity Limited capital leave farmers’ income and livelihood at risk from drought, floods...
Nigeria needs 60 million metric tons of chickens per year but only 30 percent are produced in Nigeria, despite over 23 million smallholder Nigerian farmers. These farmers are not producing due to three factors: lack of capital, lack of knowledge, and lack of access to markets. Birdpreneur solves all these issues, funding farmers through crowdfunding, teaching farmers best practices, and...
Post harvest food losses and waste is a major problem in the food and agriculture industry in sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that every year almost 50% of fruits and vegetables, 40% of roots and 20% of cereals are lost. This especially affects smallholder farmers and the food industry in general. It results in seasonal shortages and price hike African agriculture has long been a symbol of...
Over 60% of Zambia’s 17m+ population live in rural areas and over 90% of these people are smallholder farmers. Most Zambian farmers engage in livestock farming especially goats but lack access to an organized market to turn those goats into income. Zamgoat empowers smallholder farmers, by creating a sustainable market opportunity for goats, buying goats from farmers, butchering and...
The demand for livestock and poultry products is growing faster than the production in African countries. Local meat production covers part of the demand, while the rest is met by imports. The major constraints for production are inadequate feeds in terms of quality and quantity, diseases, poor genetics, and lack of commercial orientation. To feed the growing African middle class, the...
“Roughly one-third of the maize produced in the world for human consumption every year, approximately 1.3 billion tones are wasted. These losses are particularly unfortunate in Africa where 220 million people are estimated to be undernourished”. – United Nations Every smallholder farmer knows the success of his crop depends on the quality of inputs, from the best seeds to proper irrigation and...
In Malawi, of the 200 tons of honey demanded yearly only 60-90 tons is supplied domestically, creating a deficit of 110 ton, $1 million USD trade deficit. Meanwhile Malawi is an agricultural country with a potential to not only meet its domestic demand but at the same time to export $10+ million annually to neighboring countries and into the global honey market. Farmers are not utilizing this...
“Our favorite holding period is forever.” – Warren Buffett speaking on behalf of Berkshire Hathaway. At Africa Eats, our favorite holding period is the same. Why? The current status quo will see Africa’s economy grow but is unlikely to see the continent be self sustaining in terms of food as the population doubles by mid-Century. The food gap today exceeds $10 billion annually...