AgriCool secures key partnership
AgriCool was one of our season 5 graduates of our incubation program at FSAT Labs. Their goal is to source funding for small scale farmers, help them through their growing of crops process, and then provide market linkage to offset their produce.
Recently Zamokuhle and his team made great progress by securing a key partnership with Boxer Superstore. This partnership will help secure market opportunity for his farmers, thus solving a key problem in the value chain.
We are excited about this milestone and we caught up with Zamokuhle on how things are going.
Founder & CEO of AgriCool, Zamokuhle
Here Zamo has joined his team to collect produce
HOW HAS YOUR STARTUP BEEN SINCE YOU COMPLETED SEASON THE INCUBATION PROGRAMME?
First off, I'm grateful and feel privileged to have taken part in the FSAT Labs incubation programme. It has immensely improved my journey as an entrepreneur.
Since then, The COVID-19 pandemic has had quite the impact on business so it has been quite tough for us as a startup. Initially, we were selling produce directly to hawkers and when lockdown started, hawkers were prohibited to trade. Because of this, we found ourselves sitting with tons of fresh produce that we couldn't sell as we relied mainly on the informal market to buy our goods.
Because of this, we shifted our focus and decided to pivot our model and consider supplying to the formal market and retailers such as Boxer.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE PROCESS YOU HAD TO GO THROUGH TO SECURE YOUR PARTNERSHIP?
“Securing our partnership with Boxer Superstore was quite a lengthy process. It’s always a challenge for early stage startups to acquire corporate partnerships. Which is why we take pride in working extra hard to prove ourselves and continuously supply quality and fresh produce to our partners and clients.
Our social media platforms have been one of the biggest contributions to how we market ourselves and get our name out there. By being consistent on our social media platforms and highlighting opportunities for clients, we were fortunate enough to be approached by buyer representatives from Boxer which is how our partnership was formed.
Since graduating from the incubation programme and having to adapt our business model to the pandemic, I have learnt that as an agritech startup in collaboration with farmers, we should strive to create value and produce quality that continuously sells itself.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR AGRICOOL?
“AgriCool is currently working on expanding its market and we’re focused on empowering more smallholder farmers,. We are also developing a digital platform that will enable ordinary citizens to fund farmers and get profit when products go to the market. In future, we are looking to solve the problem of traceability and transparency in the value chain by using blockchain technology.“
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