Ugandan startup creates Sh31 sachet to stop harvested fruit & veg rotting

Cofounded by Dr. Samatha Ainembabazi and Mugisha Arnold in Kampala, the company, Freza, has simultaneously racked up a row of global awards for the preservative, from the SANAD ElevateHer Programme, the Food and Agriculture (FAO) Innovation Award, and the Prototype for Humanity Civil Society Award, as it emerges as a game changer in African agriculture.

The FAO estimates that 40 to 50 per cent of Africa’s roots, tubers, fruits and vegetables could be saved with cold storage, with a study in Kenya last year finding losses to food rotting without cold storage running at up to 36 per cent for maize, 22 per cent for potatoes, 56 per cent for mangoes, 35 per cent for avocadoes, and 11 per cent for bananas.

But refrigeration needs electricity, which around two thirds of rural Africans and 37 per cent of rural Kenyans do not have. For those with power, cold storage also requires expensive equipment that few farmers can afford, with a cold room from suppliers such as Nigeria’s ColdHubs costing around $28,000, or Sh3.6m, to install.

For some farmers, the answer is to rent cold storage by the day, at about Sh10 per day for 5kg, or Sh300 a month, from suppliers such as SokoFresh. However, the sachet can now instead deliver a month’s shelf life for Sh31, in a saving that quickly racks up for larger volumes. For half a tonne, rented cold storage costs of Sh30,000 become Sh3,100 of sachets.

Moreover, the extra lifespan is increasing incomes in multiple ways, said Samantha, adding around 20 per cent to users’ earnings..

“When produce holds for weeks instead of days, a farmer can wait for a better price instead of selling cheaply at the roadside and can reach buyers further away. The same crop earns more simply because it survives long enough to be sold properly,” said Samantha, in an interview with FarmBizAfrica. 

Yet the invention began in health research, instead of agriculture.

Working since 2019, “we had already been in the innovation space, specifically in health. We were already researching on enzymology, especially in regards to fruits and vegetables, both animal and plant life,” said Samantha.

“On the plantlife side, we were able to stumble upon inhibition of different enzymes involved in the rot and deterioration of fruits.”

They they moved to formulate the sachet powder from plant extracts, including the natural chemical in maize that preserves cobs.

All the ingredients are classified as safe for human consumption, so their final challenge was to get it onto the fruit and vegetables.

For farmers, they developed the sachet powder which evaporates to gas in containers, coating the fruit, and they are now blowing it in large volumes in pack houses.

“The same formulation we use in the sachets is the same one we use in our pack house unit. To put it in simple times, it works like this…It is like having a fan that blows the formulation on the fresh produce to increase its shelf life, it works like a humidifier.”.

Freza developed the pack house in the SANAD ElevateHer Programme.

“We started experimenting with different users with the SANAD programme in order for us to increase our income and customer acquisition.”

“At the end of the programme, we finished developing our pack houses formulations…We want to go to people with large pack houses and put like 2-3 units in there.”

The company has plans to expand operations into other east African countries, starting with Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, and later into southern Africa beginning with Zimbabwe.

“The product travels well because it does not depend on refrigeration, so what works for a farmer in West Nile works across all of those markets,” said Samantha.

Farmers and vendors in Uganda can get Freza sachets through distributors in the country, extension agents, and aggregators, or order online through the Freza website.

Where a farmer is having trouble using the sachets, they can send the Freza team a video and they will be guided on how to solve any problem they are having.