Photo blog: How Twiga Foods creates efficient logistics for banana farmers in rural areas.

I just got back from Meru, where I had a UX research assignment with Twiga Foods. Meru is an agriculturally rich area in central Kenya that grows bananas among other produce. If you come across a big,bright yellow banana in the streets of Kenya, there’s a high chance it originated from the Meru region.

While travelling to Meru, I observed a common mobility theme for taking bananas to the market.

1. Use of motorbikes (the most common means of transportation)

Farmer taking her produce to the market using a bodaboda (motorbike taxi)

OK! He’s not transporting bananas but you get the picture.

2. DIY (Do It Yourself)

3. Hiring a pick-up (hoping that it won’t break along the way)

Hope the bananas got to market on time.

4. Leaving bananas by the road side?

Not sure of the story behind this

5. Use of public transport

NB: All these farmers highlighted above are not sure if they would get a buyer in the market who would offer a fair price. Some would sell at a throw away price, some would be forced to walk/ride back home with their produce.

Due to uncontrolled market rules in agricultural sector, banana buyers unfairly offer low prices to farmers and sell at high price in urban areas making a great margin at the expense of the farmer.

Twiga Foods’ Model

1. Harvesting bananas from the farms

A lorry full of crates heading to a farm for a harvest.

Twiga foods harvesting bananas

Twiga foods then processes, weighs and transports bananas to the aggreagation centers

2. Taking the harvest to a Collection Centre

A Collection Centre is an aggregation point for all produce Twiga has harvested from the farms around an area. For example farms/harvests within Egoji area will be brought to the Egoji Collection Centre.

Egoji Collection Centre

Mitunguu Collection centre

3.Transporting produce to the Pack House in Syokimau(Nairobi)

After aggregation, all harvests are loaded into a trailer heading to the Pack House, where they will be dispatched to vendors all across Nairobi.

A harvest truck packing bananas to the trailer.

Twiga’s method is efficient because;

1. Transparent pricing: Twiga offers farmers a transparent and fair prices that rewards farmers for the effort.
2. Guaranteed market: Farmers are assured of a market when they work with Twiga Foods. Twiga Foods will guarantee off-take of all produce that meets the quality standards. This gives farmers the of peace of mind to work on their farms without the worry of finding a market.
3. Harvesting of bananas: Harvesting, weighing, processing and transportation are all handled by Twiga Foods. Farmers are eased of this burden and are able to focus more on producing quality bananas.
4. Payment within 24-hours: Twiga pays for produce within 24-hours of harvesting bananas.

The handling of logistics by Twiga Foods relieves the farmer a huge burden of finding a market that would fairly price their produce. Twiga Foods model ensure farmers are able to earn a decent living from their farm by focusing on growing bananas without worrying of market access.