Caminos
Verified · Jun 20251 min read
● projectPaused · national · 2014

Twiga Foods

B2B e-commerce and food logistics platform founded in 2014 that connects small producers with urban retailers (dukas) in Kenya, paying farmers more than middlemen do and settling payments via mobile money.

Rows of greenhouses filled with cropsillustrative atlas image · Phil Hearing / Unsplash
TFTwiga Foods LtdcompanyPNPeter Njonjo
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01 The context

After multiple rounds of layoffs (2022-2024), in May-June 2025 it cut more than 300 jobs, created a holding company (NewCo) and temporarily suspended its operations in Nairobi (2 months, with resumption expected around August 2025) to relocate its hub and pivot to an asset-light FMCG model.

02 How it works

method · Food supply chain aggregation and logistics (digital B2B commerce)tool · Twiga B2B platform and mobile money payments (M-Pesa)

03 What it stands on

Evidence level
Own experience
Grounded in published theory
Documented evidence elsewhere
Independently evaluated here
2 published documents support this project. No independent evaluation is in the atlas yet. Know of any? Contribute it.
The evidence 2 ›
EvidenceTwiga Foods (STI Portal organization profile)FAO Science, Technology and Innovation Portal · 2022
ContextTwiga Foods halts Nairobi operations, considers new distribution hubTechCabal · 2025

04 Lessons learned

Venture capital-funded overexpansion, capital-intensive in-house logistics operations and weak customer purchasing power can make an inclusive market model unsustainable; tying the social promise to a high cash burn exposes small producers and suppliers when the cuts arrive. Lesson: market-based social innovation needs healthy unit economics before scaling, not after.

05 Go to the source

Visit the official site ↗linkedin.com