AFRICA – African providers of cold storage solutions, Ifria Cold Chain Development Company and InspiraFarms, have entered into a regional strategic partnership to bring together deep knowledge in the cold chain business, technology development as well as economic and financial deployment skills in African countries.
The partnership leverages on Ifria’s cold chain logistics expertise together with InspiraFarms’ next-generation on-farm cold chain & food handling technology and solutions.
Ifria is an integrated cold chain development company operating in franchise, license, or directly- cold chain logistics assets, ranging from added value cold storage/logistic warehouses for perishable products in industrial zones to first mile cold chain at the production/farm level in North and West African markets.
While, InspiraFarms provides on and near farm cold storage solutions for high-value fresh produce across Africa, with energy-efficient technologies and embedded IoT to give customers deep knowledge about their produce, to grow their operations.
“Linking Ifria’s large scale hub assets with the InspiraFarms near farm modular solutions and a true integrated cold chain solution will be transformative for agricultural market systems in our targeted African countries.”
Matthew Meredith – Ifria Executive Managing Director and Co-founder
The partnership’s key objective is to enable market access for farmers and agribusinesses through the development of cold chain opportunities in West Africa and North Africa regions.
This is in order to support the social and environmental impact on reducing food loss in fresh fruit & vegetable supply chains.
“The Ifria-InspiraFarms partnership is a powerful combination. Ifria’s Management Team years of experience and understanding of complex cold chain logistics at different levels of the supply chain is uniquely complimentary to how InspiraFarms works.
“We believe this helps push the growth of cold chain and the penetration of sustainable cooling technologies, prioritizing the first-mile of distribution of key fresh produce trade markets in Africa and ultimately reducing Post Harvest Food Loss,” said Julian Mitchell, InspiraFarms CEO.
Both entities are partnering following a mutual concern with over 40% of food produce in Africa spoiling before it reaches a consumer, approaching 60% for fresh produce in Sub Saharan Africa and North Africa according to the state of food and agriculture report, done by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2019).
This is a result of the lack of cold chain solutions, near farm. The need for integrated and developed cold chain logistics is critical as it reduces crop losses, improves quality, enables agricultural exports, increases farmers & agribusinesses revenues through market access and allows them to be competitive in international markets.
“Linking Ifria’s large scale hub assets with the InspiraFarms near farm modular solutions and a true integrated cold chain solution will be transformative for agricultural market systems in our targeted African countries. Together, our partnership will enable farm to market cold chain continuity,” Matthew Meredith, Ifria Executive Managing Director and Co-founder.
In 2020, Ifria’s Management Team and InspiraFarms started working together to develop and deliver a modular cold chain solution inside the airport of Cotonou.
After this successful experience, Ifria and InspiraFarms decided to continue the collaboration for facilitating access to international standard cold chain solutions to West and North African agricultural markets.