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.
Papoli Farmers’ Association (PFA) works together with smallholder farmers to raise turkey on pasture, grains and red worms, giving the farmers the vital inputs. PFA aggregates the birds, processes and sales to various outlets like supermarkets, butcheries and hotels. We focus on turkey as malnutrition continues to be a huge developmental challenge for Uganda and is one of the principal causes of...
Obamastove was founded in 2007 by an Ethopian refugee, who as a teenager was saved from the fighting and famine at home, fled to Kenya and then was brought to the United States. Rather than remitting cash back to his family, as is the norm, he decided to set up a cookstove company, creating jobs and income for his whole community. Many years later, the company has grown beyond everyone’s...
Kenyan chickens consume over 900 thousand tons of feeds per year. Total demand is estimated at 1.4 million tons, left unfilled due to lack of domestic production and high costs. This disparity is greater in the more rural part of Kenya. In Kisii Country, demand is estimated at 80,000 tons, but only 14,000 tons are consumed. Boka Eats has the potential to meet all of this demand, plus...
“When talking about malnutrition [in Africa], it is estimated that [malnutrition] is the underlying cause of 35% to 40% children’s deaths” – The World Health Organization Malnutrition is not just a lack of calories, it is caused by a lack of protein and essential amino acids, both most easily supplied with meat. The problem isn’t a lack of nutritional knowledge, it is a lack of affordable...
Tanzania spends over $300 million USD importing 22 million liters of milk each year, despite the country having the 2nd most amount of cattle in Africa. Rogathe Dairy Farm Products processes and distributes 3,500 liters of raw milk daily (up from 350 liters thanks to the investment from the Fledge accelerator), collected directly from smallholder dairy farmers, fortified with vitamins and...
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...