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.
More than 48% of the produce grown is wasted in Tanzania, amounting to over 4.7 million tons of food that would have otherwise been income to farmers. This is due to post-harvest losses suffered by smallholder farmers resulting from poor farming, transport and storage mechanisms. Much of this is due to farmers’ lack of access to markets, which makes them rely on middlemen. Usually it takes two to...
Tanzania contributes over a third of all the sunflower seeds produced in Africa yet over half of the cooking oil is imported, costing the country over 120 million USD each year. OBRI Tanzania works directly with smallholder sunflower growers to process and supply high quality, healthier and affordable sunflower cooking oil targeting low-income families in Tanzania who constitute about 80% of the...
Western Kenya consumes 400,000 chickens every day, but only 20% is locally produced. The rest are produced elsewhere in Kenya or imported from Uganda. Chicken Basket works directly with smallholder poultry farmers through aggregation, processing and distribution of chickens into the local market. We train farmers on sustainable and commercialization of poultry farming, the vetenary officer must...
More than 70% of Tanzanians live in rural areas and they depend on agriculture to survive. The drying climate, unstable market prices for their produce, and lack of access to local and global markets are the main three challenges keeping these farmers in the cycle of poverty. Swahili Honey is a sustainable beekeeping and honey production brand that aggregates and sells high quality honey produced...
Ziweto Enterprises improves lives by raising the value of livestock, providing smallholder farmers access to quality and affordable veterinary and animal nutrition products through its network of “Ziweto Agrovet Shops” In Malawi, smallholder farmers lose 30% of their farm animals to preventable diseases. Farmers lack access to reliable and affordable animal health services, often trekking long...
Kalahari Honey a honey aggregator, packager, and distributor from Botswana that produces honey and honey wine for both local and export market. Botswana is home to the world’s largest elephant population. 70% of the country is a desert, and 80% of the population practices some form of agriculture leaving only 30% of land habitable the conflict between human and wildlife is inevitable. Every year...
There are only two ways in which a nation that fed 8.9 million in 1962 at independence can feed 12+ million now and 20+ million by 2050. Either by clearing more forest or improving productivity. Rwanda so far has done more clearing than improving on productivity. Golden Cat exists to improve productivity through improved irrigation, use of fertilizer, technology and innovation, all using a...
Geossy is a commercial aquaculture farm based in Tororo District, Eastern region of Uganda Geossy produces tilapia for sale to local and regional markets as well as fish feeds and fingerlings for its own fish farm and for sale to other fish farms in Eastern Uganda. Geossy currently owns a 19 acre hatchery, a 50-year commercial fish license to farm in Lake Victoria, Majanji District, and two feed...
90% of Ugandan energy comes from biomass fuel with only 1% from electricity. Charcoal production in Uganda is estimated at 0.85 million tons per year. This high consumption can no longer be sustainable, requiring cutting down of 75 million trees annually. Green Charcoal Uganda manufactures carbonized and non-carbonized briquettes from palm kernel husks, rice husks, coffee husks, and...
Agriculture is the biggest business in rural Ghana and in the northern half of the country, the challenges of that work are increasing as the drying climate extends the Sahara Desert further and further south into Ghana. Tilaa is a sustainable beekeeping and honey production company that aggregates and sells high quality honey, beeswax, other bees products.as well as cashew nuts and animal feed...