Freshi

I would describe myself as someone who aspires to create a social footprint. Academically my background is in economics and environmental studies. However, realizing the importance of having a sustainable and self operating solutions, I pursued an MBA. 

I have always had an itch to create a social footprint in my homeland, Tanzania. Last Summer, inspired by the conversations I had with smallholder farmers in Tanzania, I founded Freshi. Freshi is a farm to fork platform aiming to reduce food waste and connecting smallholder farmers to a market they have zero access to. 

In the past I have worked in both corporate America and startups in Tanzania. While these experiences contribute to my decision making and strategy skills, the 8 year old self who ran a mini fruits and vegetables neighborhood table really gives me the confidence that I have to run Freshi.  

Freshi is a farm to fork platform that provides farmers access to a larger market of household consumers. Freshi is committed to address the wastage of harvest that is catalyzed by an inefficient supply chain in the agribusiness ecosystem, and poor market linkage support resources for smallholder farmers in Tanzania and across Africa. 

Freshi's has the potential to reach over 60% of the population in Africa to address the challenges of food waste due to the lack of market linkage support. Through the sale of more produce, smallholder farmers are going to sell more hence increasing their disposable income. Finally, with the order placements data, Freshi will be able to predict produce demand which will help these farmers to grow within the range of demand and reduce food wastage. 

In a country with almost 50 million people, over 80% of the population in Tanzania farm to make a living. However 40% of their produce is lost every year. Traditionally, these farmers rely on a middleman to reach the market. 

On the ground conversations with smallholder farmers revealed that this is partially due to the dependency on a middleman who decides the quantity they will source. In a market that is highly saturated with smallholder farmers, mitigating this circumstance is extremely difficult. 

Freshi is creating an opportunity for smallholder farmers to access a market of household consumers without solely depending on a middleman. 

Freshi is a farm to fork platform that enables smallholder farmers to sell directly to household consumers. Unlike selling to a local middleman, smallholder farmers can sell their produce at fair prices and in a more consistent manner. Simultaneously, household consumers obtain a convenient way of getting their produce delivered to them. 

To achieve this, Freshi uses a reseller model. Our upstream operations entail sourcing produce from smallholder farmer partners, aggregating them in the Freshi warehouse space, and organizing and packaging them for delivery. To transport produce to our warehouse space, we will be partnering with transportation companies who carry items from the city to regions where our farmers are located. Therefore, ensuring lean operations while reducing our carbon footprint. 

Our downstream operations rely on a website and/or application of which our customer will use to place their pre-planned orders. By doing this we efficiently manage our inventory to keep track of demand. Additionally, pre-planned orders allow us to be strategic with our deliveries. 

Ultimately, the data collected through our household customers will support farmers with knowledge of household demand in terms of quantity, and produce. Hence, creating value to the smallholder farmers.

Freshi's beneficiaries are smallholder farmers i.e. Own less than 2 acres of land, live on less than $1 a day, highly dependent on a local middleman, and sell produce at unfair market prices. 

Our initial step was market validation. We achieved this through one-on-one interviews with farmers and potential customers. We learned from farmers that systemic factors such as the middleman and lack of market information makes the supply chain inefficient. Also, potential customers have indicated their value for convenience and better way to get produce without risking their chances of being contaminated by the coronavirus.

At Freshi we want to aggregate produce from smallholder farmers hence, helping them mitigate risks of having unsold produce, and letting their produce go to waste. The convenience we provide allows smallholder farmers to focus on what they do best i.e. growing the best produce. What makes our platform user friendly to the smallholder farmers is that they don't have to use fancy technology to reap the benefits of being part of working with us.

Additionally, we constantly engage these farmers by sharing produce household consumption information. This supports farmers with knowledge to be more sustainable and produce what is being consumed. 

Freshi's is creating market linkage support to smallholder farmers in Tanzania that will ultimately help them become independent from the traditional supply chain. Freshi will achieve this by: 

1. Providing market linkage support that enables them to sell produce, they haven't sold to a middleman, directly to household customers. 

2. Enabling smallholder farmers to understand household consumption and use predictive analytics to help them make better decisions when it comes to the quantity to farm. 

Last Summer, I met Maria- a smallholder farmer in Tanzania who farms for a living. During my conversation with her and other farmers there was a common problem- farmers aren't able to sell their produce and most end up going to waste. I learned that this is due to the conventional method of selling that is highly dependent on a middleman. With further research, I learned that 80% of the population in Tanzania that experiences this. In fact, farmers like Maria loose up to 40% of their harvest each year. 

In the Fall of that year, Freshi became a class project. I searched for teammates who were interested and we began working on and refining Freshi.

Maria is not the only person who faces this kind of loss each year. She is one of the 80% of the population in Tanzania. As someone who aspires to create a social footprint in my homeland, Tanzania, I know that the innovation that comes from Freshi is going to be life changing to a community of underserved individuals who make up the larger population.  

I have experience working in startups in Tanzania e.g. Jumia Food and NINAYO. My work has predominantly been in customer acquisition, running marketing campaigns and building startups from the ground up. I have a passion for agri-business and recognize opportunities where others may see gaps. I believe that these and accompanied with my MBA from Boston University will create purposeful impact in the lives of smallholder farmers.

Moreover, since graduating this year, Freshi has been a part of a Summer accelerator program at Boston University. This program has helped us make necessary steps in validating the market, become experts in the agribusiness sector, and form meaningful connections that are going to be effective for Freshi's launch. 

Most recently we have been doing customer discovery. This entails interviewing potential customers, smallholder famers and stakeholders within the agriculture sector in Tanzania. These interviews have opened our eyes to various challenges that make our operations quite difficult. These difficulties have made us question the impact we can create and even our launch. 

We had to go back to the drawing board. After constant deliberation and advise from our mentors and coaches, afforded to us through the Accelerator Program, we realized the best minimum viable product (MVP) that not only helps us reduce the risk of carrying perishable inventory but also create value to our end users. 

I have always defined leadership by ones ability to create opportunities despite the circumstances. This way of thinking comes from my grandmother, Mary-Louise Mackeja, after hearing her story of overcoming social and cultural norms and became the first woman in East Africa to get a driving license. 

Like my grandmother I am challenging the norms of being a female leader entering an ecosystem that is predominantly occupied by men. In my journey of finding a market need for Freshi I had the opportunity to interact with various industry stakeholders including smallholder farmers, institutional stakeholders and government officials. What's always caught my attention is how gender skewed these experiences were. However, what's surprising to me is that, unlike the popular opinion, I wasn't looked down upon. My voice was heard. In fact, a lot of these individuals and experts encouraged me. 

This experience has helped me realized a personal milestone. Through Freshi, I want to show women in Tanzania that it is okay to dream big and challenge the norms. 

While there are some innovations on a B2B and B2C level, our analysis indicates that the supply chain does not provide a favorable business environment for farmers to access household consumers. Unlike other players, Freshi:

1. Shares household produce consumption data to smallholder farmers: We see ourselves being beyond a farm to fork platform. We want to leverage produce consumption data and use predictive analytics to help smallholder farmers manage their produce quantities and variety. For example, based on consumption data, we can advise our smallholder farmers to grow 8,000 bags of potatoes versus 10,000 bags. Hence, reducing food waste. 

2. Digitizes the downstream operations: A number of innovations apply digital solutions that aren't user friendly to smallholder farmers. For example, solutions require internet and smartphone ownership. Freshi takes this into account by digitizing the downstream part of the supply chain while providing user friendly options to interact with the smallholder farmers e.g. Phone calls and field officers. 

3. Works directly with farmer groups to give them market access. Farmers are forming mini markets to sell harvest that they cannot sell through the middleman. Freshi's approach is to have exclusive partnerships with farmer groups. This enables us to manage the network effects, build more of a community environment and source more produce at a shorter period of time. 

Freshi's theory of change aims to address food wastage that results from unsold produce. A study by Dalberg found that only 10% of the world's smallholder farmers participate in the market, leaving the 90% to influence the amount of post harvest waste. Freshi aims to address this by providing smallholder farmers access to household consumers. Ultimately, a reliable and innovative way to reach the end user will not only help reduce the 40% post harvest waste but also lead to their economic well being. 

Some of the inputs Freshi mobilizes to create market linkage support include: Communication on produce availability, sourcing and aggregating produce, payments to farmers through ubiquitous channels such as M-Pesa, reselling and delivering produce directly to household consumers, and strategic marketing campaigns to households. By doing this we are removing most of the burden from the smallholder farmers and creating a favorable environment for them to focus on farming great produce. 

Immediate outputs we hope to generate from the above activities include data collection of household consumption of produce and quantity, and relationship with farmers to ensure a reliable partnership. 

Our outcomes are divided into three parts. In the near term we foresee the market linkage support being the stepping stone towards our goal of helping farmers sell their produce. Ultimately, this support will lead to intermediate outcomes of increasing the farmers' income and bringing them closer towards becoming social equity. For example, Olam International's cashew nuts market linkage project in Tanzania is empowering smallholder farmers to be financially stable while observing spillover effects such as improving food nutrition and promoting female inclusion. 

In the longterm, through predictive analysis, the household consumption data will be shared to our farmers to help them understand market trends and needs. For example, through its e-commerce platform, a startup in Nigeria (Foodlocker), uses deep learning to assess demand for different produce. This is then used to analyze historical trends data and forecast the quantity of each commodity. Similarly, Freshi will provide this information to the farmers to help them be more confident on what to produce and the quantities. 

At the point of full operation and scale, Freshi will be impacting the lives of and reaching 80% of the population in Tanzania who are farmers.

Currently, we are working on launching Freshi for a launch month of December 2020. Prior to this launch we are in contact with farmer organization associations that host up to 250,000 smallholder farmers. This organization is excited about the opportunity to onboard these farmers for an opportunity to access other customer segments. 

In one year, we project reaching approximately 10,000 households (excluding loyal and acquired customers). To accommodate the demand we are expecting to increase our smallholder farmers from 5000 to 250,000. This projection takes into account aspects such as seasonality, climate changes, harvest quantity and harvest variety that may influence the output that the smallholder farmers may face. 

In five years, we are projecting reaching approximately 100,000 customers (excluding loyal and acquired customers). To accommodate the demand we are projecting to increase our smallholder farmers from 250,000 to 1 million. Therefore projecting to reach approximately 25% of the smallholder farmer population within the five year period of operation. 

Before this year ends Freshi is transforming from a concept into a running platform. By 2021 we hope to scale our operations to reach more farmers. In order to have the social impact footprint we want to create we recognize that it is imperative for Freshi to consider creative ways of scaling that will be appealing to household customers.

To achieve this, our five year journey is illustrated through three horizons of innovation that our business is going to undergo. While each horizon is a service extension and opportunity, all three horizons carry the same objective i.e. reducing food waste by helping smallholder farmers access a market of household consumers.

1. Horizon 1- Freshi remains a fruits and vegetable delivery service. In this stage we not only see ourselves working in Tanzania but also scaling our operations in other neighboring countries in East Africa such as Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya. 

2. Horizon 2- Freshi has an opportunity to not only delivery produce but also deliver meal kits that have the right number of produce needed to feed the number of individuals in a household. Additionally, this service extension helps address food waste on a household level. 

3. Horizon 3- Freshi can explore opportunities in processing food and creating branded products for retail space or sold in our platform. We envision using unsold produce that is in our aggregation space and processing them into products that are consumed by households everyday. These include tomato paste, jams and even juices. 

Our biggest barrier is the financial resource to scale and put Freshi into the reach of smallholder farmers across. Bearing in mind our vision, marketing, operation and asset needs, it's essential for us to obtain the financial support from strategic partners and institutions who are also aligned with our social impact objective. 

While Freshi is in its concept stage, we have taken a number of steps to move us into the right direction. Our market validation effort has allowed us to identify a need by smallholder farmers but also the need for convenience by household consumers. This market need validates a proven willingness to pay that will make Freshi self running even after initial financial support. 

Additionally, we have leveraged resources here at Boston University (where I graduated this year) that has awarded us a small grant for the Summer with mentorship support. These three months will be used to set the foundations for our platform and create the online presence we desperately need. 

Lastly, we have expanded our reach to institutions outside of Boston University. For example, we have presented our idea to a social impact accelerator in Cambridge Massachusetts who has invited us to be a part of their Fall accelerator program that also provides a small grant and mentorship. 

We are excited about leaving these experiences with a strong foundation to launch Freshi in December. The small grant support provided is also going to be very important in taking us from a concept into an actual operation. 

For the initial piloting of Freshi we are excited about the opportunity to partner with the following organizations:

1. Saibaba Express Bus Transportation Company- Leveraging their transportation routes and vehicles to transport items from the regions where farmers are located to Dar-es-Salaam (headquarters for aggregation).

2. Vodacom and Tigo Telecommunication companies- Leveraging their mobile payment solutions for seamless payments to the farmers and also between Freshi and our customers. Additionally, telecom companies can play a strategic role in our marketing campaigns. They have a channel to reach our target customers. 

3. World Food Program- Leveraging their ecosystem of organized smallholder farmer groups to source produce from and maximize our reach. This will help us have a reliable supply of produce while also helping WFP meet its objectives.  

To reduce the 40% food waste, Freshi utilizes a market intermediary business model connecting smallholder farmers with household consumers. To achieve this we use a reseller model. We purchase all produce from the smallholder farmers and then resell them to the household customers.Through this, Freshi reduces the risk of a smallholder farmer not selling while providing the delivery convenience and time saving value to the household individual. 

To the smallholder farmer who faces post-harvest loss, due to trouble selling his/her produce, Freshi provides them a reliable and consistent alternative to access the market without incurring transportation and storage costs. Unlike selling through the middleman, our service pays the farmer fair prices and assures them a consistent buyer.

For individuals who do not have the time to go to the market, our reseller platform provides a seamless and convenient way to order and get their produce delivered. Unlike local markets, our platform provides an online delivery service which makes it easy for households to place pre-orders without going to the market only not to find what they were looking for. Moreover, our inventory management infrastructure will allow delivery of produce without neglecting quality. 

While we consider ourselves a for profit our revenue streams are built on a mission to help smallholder farmers decrease food waste but also allows them to do so while earning more. 

To be able to stand by this we make money in two ways i.e. the produce purchased by the household customer and the delivery fee. Hence, the more Freshi generates orders the more food waste we decrease and smallholder farmers we generate equity for. Our customer discovery interviews have validated the hypothesis that urban household customers face a number of pain points when they go to a local market, but they also value convenience, time and quality produce. 

However, to begin operating fully in December we also recognize we need to be able to hire full time employees and have an inventory management infrastructure and building to deliver the orders we expect. To do this we are going to do a combination of applying for grants and donations, and raising investments. In the long term, we want the revenue generated from our orders to sustain our business. But to get to this stage we need some funding. 

To date we have raised $10,000 through Boston University's Innovation Lab (BUild Lab). This money also allows us to be a part of their Summer Accelerator program which we are currently participating in. Our goals for this Summer is to:

1. Create an online presence (social media and website)

2. Pricing strategy (think about and create a pricing model for our produce)

3. Partnership opportunities analysis 

4. Conceptualize our minimum viable product (MVP)

The amount is offered to us as a form of a grant without any equity. While we have not started generating any income, the program is helping us lay a foundation for a launch in December. 

Moreover, we are in conversation with another social impact accelerator program in Cambridge. We are hoping to also get $10,000. 

With the foundations laid out from both accelerator programs I hope to relocate back to Tanzania and launch Freshi. 

To get Freshi off the ground, in our first year, we need to raise at least $400,000. We prefer this amount to be in grant funding however we are flexible to offer equity to get strategic investors. In our second year, we need to raise at least $1 million. With a total amount of $1.4 million raised within two years we can operate at scale while self funding the business through orders generated. We are happy to provide a breakdown of how we reached that dollar amount.

We estimate using $20,000 worth of expenses for this year. These expenses are going towards building our website, human capital, administrative expenses, living expenses, communication and travel. The travel portion of our expenses are expected to occur when my team flies back to Tanzania. Moreover, bearing in mind that the core team is now in Boston, where we can't use Whatsapp communication with locals in Tanzania, we incur phone credits to communicate with our Tanzanian counterpart. Human capital expenses are predominantly for any outsourced services but also salary paid to our part-time member and local counterpart. 

Over the past year of studying and becoming a self taught expert in the agribusiness supply chain, I keep going back to my conversation with Maria- a smallholder farmer in Tanzania. Maria gave me a glimpse of her experience being unable to sell her produce and resulting spillover effects that influence her wellbeing. It is this conversation, and many others, that have inspired my application for The Elevate Prize. 

While Freshi has managed to raise $10,000 in grants, we recognize that there is a need for more financial support to help scale and reach smallholder farmers across Tanzania. Bearing in mind our vision, marketing, operation and asset needs, it's essential for us to obtain the financial support from strategic partners and institutions who are also aligned with our social impact objective. We recognize that our mission and vision are aligned with the objective of The Elevate Prize.

Finally, as someone who just graduated from my Masters program I have many opportunities to seek careers in America's corporate world. I have personally foregone this direction because I strongly believe in Freshi and the footprint it can create in Tanzania's food system one order at a time.  

We recognize that the above areas of support are going to be pivotal in our journey to redefine the agriculture supply chain. The funding is going to play an important role in reaching as many smallholder farmers (beneficiaries) as we can but also marketing to urban household consumers (end users). 

Additionally, we recognize the importance of getting mentorship from the MIT Solve team. The Solve team's experience working with organizations and solutions in emerging markets, specifically in Africa, will bring great value to further Freshi's solution both within our talent acquisition strategy but also our strategic direction. 

1. Solve members- Bearing in mind the various numbers of stakeholders within the agriculture sector we see a lot of opportunities for us to leverage the network of leaders and innovators built by the Community Coordinator. Moreover, we are excited to get the support from the Internationals Program team especially with strategy implementation.

2. Vodafone- Leveraging their mobile payment solution (M-PESA) for seamless payments to the farmers and also between Freshi and our customers. Additionally, telecom companies can play a strategic role in our marketing campaigns. They have a channel to reach our target customers. 

3. World Food Program- Leveraging their ecosystem of organized smallholder farmer groups to source produce from and maximize our reach. This will help us have a reliable supply of produce while also helping WFP meet its objectives