East Africa Fruits raises $3.1 million to address Tanzania’s food distribution challenges
Summary
ImpactAlpha, May 7 – Tanzania’s East Africa Fruits is a produce distributor that works with smallholder farmers to acquire, store and deliver goods from farm to market. East Africa Fruits’ model is similar to Twiga, in Kenya, which raised a $24 million funding round in December. While Twiga is shifting focus towards bigger growers as it expands operations, while East Africa Fruits plans to use its funding round to reach 10,000 small farmers and 6,000 vendors in the next three years. “There’s significant room for them to grow, as a profitable, sustainable, high-growth small-to-mid-sized business,” FINCA Ventures’ Alex Evangelides tells ImpactAlpha. The company’s decision to focus more on its underserved customers has helped it weather COVID, Evangelides said: East Africa Fruits’ sales have continued to grow amid the pandemic because of demand from grocery stores and kiosk owners.