Ifria and InspiraFarms announce strategic partnership to develop cold chain logistics in North and West Africa

Ifria Cold Chain Development Company and InspiraFarms are pleased to announce that they have entered into a regional strategic partnership, combining Ifria’s industry leading cold chain logistics expertise with InspiraFarms’ one-of-a-kind and next-gen on-farm cold chain & food handling technology and solutions.

Ifria and InspiraFarms are partnering following a mutual concern. Over 40% of food produce in Africa spoils 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.

The Ifria-InspiraFarms partnership brings together deep knowledge in the cold chain business, technology development as well as economic and financial deployment skills in African countries. 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,” Julian Mitchell, InspiraFarms CEO.

“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. The airport terminal pineapple cooling facility includes pre-cooling and cold storage, with aggregation, processing, precooling and packing areas, as well with a tarmac-side facility for air pallet management. The facility will reinforce the competitiveness of pineapples in international market.

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. Both companies decided to continue to utilize a market system approach to meet the needs of farmers and agribusinesses who do not have access to cold chain solutions and require urgent reduction of post-harvest losses, extend shelf-life and meet international quality standards.

About the companies

Ifria Cold Chain Development Company

Ifria is an integrated cold chain development company (DevCo) in North and West African markets. Ifria’s mission is to develop new, modern and efficient perishable product storage capacities that can more efficiently serve the growing and rapidly changing needs of the Pan African markets. Ifria is focused on developing and operating- in franchise, license, or directly- cold chain logistics assets ranging from added value cold storage/logistic warehouses for perishable products (in areas such as Airports, Maritime Ports, Agri-business zones or similar industrial zones) to first mile cold chain at the production/farm level.

InspiraFarms

InspiraFarms is the leading provider of on and near farm cold storage solutions for high-value fresh produce across Africa that reduces Post Harvest Losses, increases shelf life of produce, with energy-efficient technologies and embedded IoT to give customers deep knowledge about their produce, to grow their operations. The technology is oriented to agribusinesses, exporters, 3PL and food distributors that require reliable and food-safety pre-cooling and first-mile cold chain and handling spaces for their fresh produce, that meet the major international food safety certifications. InspiraFarms serves clients across Africa, including many of the leading Agricultural producers who export to the EU and Middle Eastern markets.

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