Kenyan Food Distribution Giant, Twiga Foods Opens Shop In Uganda.
Fresh produce and fast-moving-consumer-goods aggregator Twiga Foods, has officially commenced business operations in Uganda. This will officially mark the company’s first pan-African expansion drive into Africa’s online retail market.
The move is great news for Ugandan consumers and Ugandan farmers. Ugandan consumers, will now be able to access high quality fresh produce ranging from onions, tomatoes, to fruits and vegetables directly from the Twiga foods farm.
For the Ugandan farmer, the opening of Twiga will provide a platform for them to export high quality fresh produce like Pineapples, Watermelons, among others to Kenya and the rest of the East African markets.
Speaking during the launch, Twiga’s CEO, East Africa Yebeltal Getachew noted that the company was proud to expand its business to Uganda. He explained that for the start, Twiga will only be able to serve customers that reside in Kampala, but there are plans to expand the service portfolio to other major towns. He said that an effective framework was already in place to effectively serve the Ugandan market.
“Twiga is synonymous with innovating for sustainability. We are not just an online platform that connects farmers, suppliers, vendors to customers. We are a highly efficient food security engine, built to sufficiently control and manage forces that cause scarcity, while ensuring food security enabling systems. We have instilled very stringent quality assurance processes to ensure hygiene and proper produce handling” he explained.
Twiga Fresh has been awarded Global Food Certificates, and it has mechanisms where one can easily
He added that Twiga has the capacity to operate effectively in the Ugandan market.
“Inefficient supply chains have contributed to high costs of food produce in Africa for a long time. Our company’s business model, through Twiga Fresh however, seeks to continue transforming African retail by employing Large- scale farming, leveraging economies of scale in agriculture to sell affordable food. The concept involves the use of machinery and high-end farm implements and tools to consistently produce high-yield food production and sustain food availability.
With this model coupled with modernized supply chains, Twiga will reduce the cost of food among vendors besides increasing food security for Africa”
Twiga Fresh has been awarded Global Food Certificates, and it has mechanisms where one can easily map the journey of their food from the farm to their plate; for purposes of quality control.
The latest development comes at a time when major supermarket chains in Uganda are shutting down following a significant resurgence of online retail.
“Since the inception of Twiga, we have built a deep understanding of how to innovate in the African retail market. We are embracing independent retailers while giving them greater access to high quality food, produce and consumer goods by leveraging the latest technology and the ubiquity of mobile phones combined with modern distribution and logistics.”
Twiga Foods continues to take lead in setting standards for food production and distribution in Sub-Saharan Africa hence addressing food security challenges.
