Twiga’s technology is at the heart of the solution to Africa’s lack of affordable access to food. It’s estimated that Africans spend up to ten times more of their disposable income on food compared to developed markets.
This is a problem primarily driven by a highly fragmented and inefficient retail market across the continent, where around 90% of the retail industry consists of small, informal independent retailers.
About 150 years ago, consumers in the USA were spending a similarly exorbitant amount of their disposable income on food as compared to Africa today, but, years of private sector-led investment in retail infrastructure have built an efficient supply chain.
Today, the spend on food and beverage in the US is only 6% of disposable income. A ton of tomatoes in the US costs around $100. Due to intermediaries and inefficient production, in Kenya, the cost is $420, where consumers are spending close to 50% of their disposable income on food.
Twiga is building an alternative system that aims to generate the same results as the modernization of retail in the more developed markets, by leveraging technology and the ubiquity of mobile phones, combined with modern distribution and logistics to aggregate consumer demand and start building more efficient supply chains.
