Sep022021
Posted by:admin
Caspian Climate Conversations | Episode 2
Featuring Ms. Gigi Mathews, Enviu India Country Director
Gigi spearheads the India agenda in defining Enviu’s pioneering role as creating and validating innovative inclusive solutions, growing companies that have the potential, to drive markets to a new normal. Gigi has been an active entrepreneur herself from building a technology company to a multimedia company.
Featuring Dr. Eveline Jansen, Regional Program Manager – FoodFlow, Enviu East Africa
Dr. Eveline Jansen is a project design, management, and impact specialist with a wealth of experience working with international organizations and companies. She has held advisory and management roles earlier in her career and is now stewards Enviu’s activities in East Africa. She has a strong background in (off-grid) solar energy and holds a PhD in Chemistry.
To tune into the recording, please use the available link here: https://www.mentza.com/circles/3031
Please find below a summarized transcript of this interesting conversation:
The issue of food wastage is well known to our audience and so are some of the technology solutions. But what is interesting about your intervention is that it is multi-pronged. Please tell us why threading in multiple solutions is important.
A standard approach is not applicable every time and Enviu doesn’t always follow a set procedure. A multi-pronged approach was very applicable when looking at downstream to upstream horticultural value chains as part of the FoodFlow program. In order to encourage small-holder farmers to adopt newer technologies (e.g., cold storage), both the incentive (e.g., guarantees) and the market linkage was needed to be provided. Hence, building the whole system is required often to successfully operate a venture.
Could you tell us more about one of your ventures – SokoFresh (https://sokofresh.co.ke/)?
SokoFresh provides climate-smart innovations to small-holder farmers. Listed below are some of the individual services provided by the company with the larger aim to avoid food loss:
- Provides cold storage solutions to ~150 farmers per harvesting season (to increase shelf life).
- Initiates appropriate harvesting cycles to avoid wastage due to premature or delayed harvest.
- Extensive training and knowledge transfer to small-holder farmers.
- Connects small-holder farmers to markets by transporting fruits and vegetables to market centers.
- Providing services to process second-grade rejected produce and thereby increase farmer income.
- Setting up a digital market linkage program to link farmers directly to buyers and limit income loss to middlemen.
What progress has been made by the individual ventures supported by Enviu and the whole FoodFlow initiative?
- Through SokoFresh, nearly 1000 horticultural farmers have been onboarded since the program was launched a year ago.
- The program has achieved to bring down the market average food (vegetable and fruit) loss of 50% to 0-2%.
- As the ventures grow, so do the impact outcomes of reduced food loss and more equitable value chains.
For relatively small companies to sell across borders is not easy. How does Enviu support this?
Enviu, through its global presence, has demonstrated multiple instances of replicating a venture in a different geography or increasing the visibility of businesses through its vast networks spread across India, Indonesia, East Africa, and the Netherlands. In this way, Enviu’s role enhances cross-border selling opportunities for ventures.
What is Enviu’s broad approach to venture building?
We begin with systemic root cause analysis to break down a value chain and identify key levers of change that can create social and environmental impact at scale. This is followed by ideation, creation, and building business models through collaborations with knowledge and funding partners.
Enviu works in specific areas like plastics, food, shipping, textiles, etc. We support both in-house and external entrepreneurs. Inhouse entrepreneurs known as venture builders have a background in entrepreneurship, while the external entrepreneurs are selected through a competitive assessment of applications that we receive. The success rate for the ventures supported by us is close to 80%.
Is replication of East African FoodFlow solutions in alternate geographies viable? Is there an opportunity for zero food loss programs or any other climate-smart agriculture program in India?
Every geography is quite unique and hence it is not certain that direct replication can always work. ‘Taking what works and building from there is the general approach of Enviu to replicate models. This was successfully applied to replicate the FoodFlow model developed in Kenya to neighboring Tanzania. Yes, India has a tremendous opportunity for food loss initiatives as close to 16% of agricultural produce in India (majorly fruits and vegetables) goes to waste.