Kipitfresh (Alabaster Agro-Allied Industries) is an agritech start-up promoting efficient energy end uses for productive applications such as Cooling in off-grid rural farming communities in Nigeria and peri-urban fruit markets with no access to energy.
We adopt Cooling as a service (CaaS) business model in providing Cooling for fresh fruits and vegetables using Cold chain storage and distribution assets powered by clean and renewable energy sources. We help bottom of the pyramid players like small-holder farmers and female fruit retailers defray the upfront cost of acquiring expensive cold chain assets. We only charge for space occupied for either storage or distribution as well as energy usage.
Kipitfresh is part of GOGLA’s ELEVATE cohort.
To preserve in a cool way with greater efficiency.
Edo State, Nigeria
2018
Jacob Ugbodaga, Founder
West Africa
Kipitfresh provides Solar powered Reefers for cold chain storage at the Farmgate, and Solar powered Refrigerated Trucks for cold chain distribution of Fresh fruits and vegetables. We seek to achieve the vision of an unbroken cold chain network for fruits supply in Nigeria. We employ diverse digital technologies for temperature and humidity controls and in aggregating demand for farmers. We provide farmers with expanded access to niche markets in the country.
According to the World Bank, electricity rate in Nigeria stands at 55.4% with a huge gap in rural areas. The agricultural sector and Fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV’s) sub-sector is heavily plagued with unproductivity due to access to lack of access to energy for cooling that would ultimately lead to post-harvest losses.
Over, 9 Billion worth of FFV’s is lost annually due to postharvest losses arising from lack of cold chain facilities according to the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology. The projected total market opportunity for Cold chain infrastructure deployment in Nigeria by Year 2030 stands at 1.77 billion dollars.
Access to energy for cooling would help reduce postharvest losses by over 50% especially in off-grid rural farming communities with over 75% of small holder farmers still predominantly women (according to Federal Ministry of Agriculture – FMARD).
There is an evident market for improving energy access for productive end uses in the agricultural sector with an estimated 95% annual growth rate for Solar off-grid Cold chain Solutions for FFV’s sector and over 11 million metric tons of fruits transported internally within Nigeria.
Kipitfresh is attending to this market opportunity by providing Cold chain storage and distribution for off-grid rural communities in Nigeria at an affordable rate with huge prospects for scalability.
GOGLA membership would help us with robust investment readiness information, market insights, and facilitate access to industry players in the renewable energy space.