62 - Transforming Waste into Wealth: Let's Learn from Twigga Foods' Revolution
Twigga Foods turned Africa’s food waste crisis into a $700M opportunity. By cutting out middlemen and connecting farmers directly to urban retailers, they boosted farmer incomes and lowered consumer prices. Learn how innovation is reshaping agribusiness.
Transforming Waste into Wealth: Let's Learn from Twigga Foods' Revolution
Africa faces a major challenge—about 40% of its food supply is lost before it even reaches consumers. For years, this was seen as an unsolvable problem, a structural inefficiency built into the agricultural system. But where others saw waste, Twigga Foods saw a billion-dollar opportunity.
By bypassing traditional supply chains and leveraging technology, Twigga Foods created a mobile-first platform that connects farmers directly to urban retailers. This eliminated unnecessary middlemen, reduced logistical inefficiencies, and ensured fresher, more affordable produce reached consumers. The results? Farmer incomes increased by 40%, while consumer prices dropped significantly.
Twigga Foods didn’t just fix a broken system; they built a better one. Their model is a powerful lesson in reframing challenges as opportunities. Instead of trying to improve the old way of doing things, they asked: What if we started from scratch?
The takeaway? Sometimes, the biggest innovations come from seeing problems differently. Tune in to this episode of Pattern Cognition with Sid Mofya to explore how rethinking traditional models can unlock massive potential.
Highlights:
00:00 Turning Africa's Biggest Problem into an Opportunity
00:07 The Scale of Food Waste in Africa
00:15 Twigga Foods' Innovative Solution
00:22 Impact on Farmers and Consumers
00:31 Lessons Learned from Twigga Foods
00:35 Building a Better System
Links:
Website: https://www.sidmofya.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidmofya/
Transcript:
So how do you turn Africa's biggest problem into a 700 million opportunity? Ask Twigga Foods. Africa loses about 40 percent of its food before it reaches consumers. Twigga saw this as waste, not as a barrier, but as a billion dollar opportunity. They built a mobile first platform connecting farmers directly to urban retailers, cutting out the middlemen.
And now they're moving hundreds of tons of fresh produce daily, increasing farmer incomes by 40 percent and lowering consumer prices. So what do we learn? Sometimes the biggest opportunities come wrapped as problems. And Quaker didn't try to fix the old system, they just built a better one.