Twiga Foods stands out as a leading technology-enabled food distribution company in Kenya, offering market-based solutions through an innovative business-to-business (B2B) model. Founded in 2014, the company connects suppliers with vendors operating micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), providing consumers with access to high-quality products and retail services.
Over the past nine years, Twiga has experienced tremendous growth. Through Twiga’s cashless mobile-based application, vendors can place orders for various products, primarily fruits and vegetables. The company delivers orders within 24 hours, sourcing directly from farms, including smallholders. The direct linkages with suppliers, growing consumer demand, and use of mobile-based applications have allowed Twiga to build more robust and efficient supply chains.
The Visionary Behind Twiga Foods
Peter Njonjo co-founded Twiga Foods in 2014, building a digital B2B platform that connects Kenyan farmers with informal urban retail vendors. Before Twiga, he spent about 21 years at Coca‑Cola, finishing as President of its West & Central Africa business unit, overseeing 33 countries.
Njonjo’s inspiration to found Twiga Foods stemmed from a combination of firsthand exposure to inefficiencies in African supply chains, personal entrepreneurial experiences, and a pivotal business failure. The most direct catalyst occurred when Njonjo and his co-founder Grant Brooke attempted to export Kenyan bananas to the Middle East. Despite securing buyer interest, they failed to ship a single container due to inadequate aggregation, inconsistent quality, and the informal nature of farmer operations.
Njonjo later reflected: “We couldn’t export a single container… Everything was super informal. That’s what led us to understand why Africans in urban cities are spending a fortune on food in this day and age.” This experience made Njonjo recognise a critical opportunity: the domestic market for informal vendors, known locally as ‘mama mbogas’ or kiosks, was vast but underserved.
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Leveraging his Coca-Cola experience, Njonjo mapped a business model that combined technology, logistics, and finance. He designed Twiga Foods as a B2B platform where smallholder farmers supply produce directly to informal vendors through a digitally managed, centrally coordinated distribution network. Mobile payments were integrated to ensure timely cash flows, while cold storage and route optimisation reduced post-harvest losses from approximately 30% to 4%.
As of early 2022, Twiga Foods had raised over US$150 million, worked with more than 17,000 farmers, served around 140,000 small retail outlets in Kenya, and plans to expand across Africa.
Early Life, Education, and Experience of Peter Njonjo
Peter Njonjo was born and raised in Kenya, where his early exposure to local markets and business environments shaped his understanding of structural inefficiencies in supply and distribution. During his high school years, Njonjo ran a small bread-reselling venture within the school dormitories, an early indication of his interest in distribution, supply, and value creation.
Njonjo pursued a strong academic and professional foundation in business, finance, and management. He studied accounting and finance at Strathmore Business School in Kenya (1995-1997), earning qualifications sufficient to become a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He subsequently obtained a Bachelor of Science in International Business Administration from United States International University - Africa (USIU‑Africa). To further enhance his executive and strategic capabilities, he completed an Executive Leadership Programme at Harvard Business School and holds an MBA in Strategic Management.
Njonjo’s professional career spans over two decades at The Coca-Cola Company, where he gained extensive experience in finance, logistics, and operations. He joined Coca-Cola in 1998 as an accountant in Kenya and steadily advanced through several key roles. His final executive role at Coca-Cola was President of the West & Central Africa Business Unit, based in Lagos, Nigeria. In this position, he managed operations across 33 African countries and led major acquisitions, including the US$550 million purchase of Chi Beverages Nigeria.
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Twiga Foods' Business Model and Its Impact
One of the unique features of Twiga’s business model is its work with vulnerable populations, including youth and women business owners, targeting consumers in informal urban settlements. More than 65 percent of Twiga’s vendors are women and at least 45 percent of all its vendors are youth ages 25 to 34. Twiga provides business training and support to the MSMEs in its network, helping to share insights on inventory management, pricing strategies, customer relations, and other relevant topics. This support helps retailers improve their operational efficiency and enhance their business experience.
The company also provides credit to food retailers, allowing them to access inventory even when they have limited upfront capital. Twiga also collaborates with research and development organizations, including the CGIAR Initiative on Sustainable Healthy Diets through Food Systems Transformation (SHiFT). The company uses research findings to support its data-driven decision-making as it continues working to improve the African food system.
Twiga Foods employs a business-to-business model. It sells to merchants who in turn sell to the end customers. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has the company exploring how to get food in the hands of more Kenyans at an even lower cost. It is another distribution avenue for Twiga.
AISIKI- Transforming food distribution in Africa, one city at a time.
Problems Twiga Foods Solves:
- Fragmented supply chain and multiple intermediaries: Twiga addresses this by creating a direct, technology-driven B2B platform connecting farmers to retailers, reducing intermediaries, and increasing efficiency across the supply chain.
- High post-harvest losses and food waste: Twiga mitigates these losses through centralised warehouses, cold storage, and optimised delivery routes.
- Unreliable supply for informal retailers: Twiga provides a reliable, predictable supply, allowing retailers to receive orders on time and at standardised quality.
- Poor and unpredictable income for smallholder farmers: Twiga introduces direct market access with transparent pricing and prompt payments, stabilising farmers’ income and encouraging investment in better agricultural practices.
- High food costs for urban consumers: By streamlining procurement and logistics, reducing waste, and cutting intermediaries, Twiga effectively lowers the cost of produce, making fresh, affordable food more accessible in urban areas.
- Lack of data-driven logistics and scalability: Twiga integrates technology, mobile ordering, route optimisation, and demand forecasting, enabling it to scale efficiently while maintaining quality and reliability.
- Under-serving the informal retail sector in Africa’s urban markets: Twiga focuses on these small retailers, creating a structured, tech-enabled distribution network that supports their businesses while simultaneously improving market access for farmers.
Milestones Achieved by Twiga Foods
Since its founding in 2014, Twiga Foods has transformed Kenya’s food distribution system by connecting smallholder farmers directly to urban retailers through a technology-driven platform. Twiga’s first major funding milestone came in July 2017, when it raised about US$10.3 million in a Series A round. In November 2018, Twiga secured an additional US$10 million to scale operations and extend support to small retailers. In October 2019, Twiga completed a US$30 million Series B round led by Goldman Sachs. The company achieved another major milestone in November 2021, raising US$50 million in a Series C round led by Creadev.
In May 2022, Twiga launched Twiga Fresh, a modern farming venture established through an investment of about US... A tech-led enterprise with expansion on the menu, Twiga Foods is the distributor breathing new life into supply chains for fresh produce at scale.
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As CEO and co-Founder of this visionary enterprise, Peter Njonjo oversees a standout operation in pursuit of cross-continental industry change. “We are the only player on the continent that’s delivering fresh produce at scale. Our trucks cover about 12,000 kilometres a day. For context, that’s like going around the world every three days,” he states.
Since its inception in 2014, Twiga has grown to encompass over 20 operations in both Kenya and Uganda, counting over 140,000 customers across both geographies and supplying over 12,000 of those customers on a daily basis. Combining this sheer scale with the implementation of sophisticated infrastructure and technological innovation, Twiga continues to build an entire ecosystem that transforms traditional African retail to the benefit of customers and vendors alike.
The ecosystem that Twiga envisions brings many advantages for suppliers and vendors, which ultimately translate to fairer prices for the consumer. This is where Twiga’s second greatest differentiator comes into play in keeping prices low, as a company that works with specific manufacturers to create its own branded goods. Through its private label strategy, specialising in staple products from baby diapers to cooking oil, Twiga guarantees availability and ensures that vendors are getting the best price.
At Twiga, the incorporation of key technologies such as the app are instrumental in optimising supply chain management, where data drives the company forwards in harmony with the physical fleet of transport delivering the products themselves.
| Funding Round | Date | Amount (USD) | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | July 2017 | 10.3 million | Various |
| Additional Funding | November 2018 | 10 million | Various |
| Series B | October 2019 | 30 million | Goldman Sachs |
| Debt Financing | 2020 | 29.4 million | International Finance Corporation (IFC) |
| Series C | November 2021 | 50 million | Creadev, TLcom Capital, IFC Ventures, DOB Equity |
Challenges and Restructuring
Twiga Foods, a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace platform that sources produce directly from farmers and delivers it to urban retailers, has faced significant challenges in Kenya, leading to its current financial struggles. Twiga Foods initially focused on connecting farmers with urban retailers, primarily dealing in fresh produce like bananas, onions, and tomatoes.
Twiga Foods' rapid growth led to operational challenges, particularly in logistics and product standardization. The company invested in modern distribution, ripening, and cold storage facilities to ensure consistent product sizes and volumes. The broader economic environment also played a role in Twiga's struggles.
Twiga's venture into farming and the government-sponsored Galana Kulalu irrigation project, which focused on maize production, deviated from its core strategy of fresh produce distribution. The legal battle with Incentro Africa over cloud services and partner service funds added to Twiga's woes.
Twiga Foods' failure in Kenya can be attributed to a combination of overexpansion, financial mismanagement, operational inefficiencies, adverse market conditions, strategic missteps, and legal disputes. While the company's innovative model showed promise, these critical issues hindered its ability to sustain growth and profitability.
This decision follows months of restructuring, acquisitions, and staff layoffs aimed at reducing costs and shifting towards a more efficient, data-driven distribution strategy. This pause in Nairobi operations highlights the growing pressure from investors and market realities, pushing the company to adjust its supply chain model. Despite raising over $180 million in funding across several rounds, Twiga’s business model has struggled to scale effectively in the Kenyan market, according to three former employees who spoke with TechCabal.
In a statement to TechCabal, Twiga confirmed that its internal reorganisation would result in the loss of several roles, primarily within the supply chain department. Twiga’s most recent major funding round was a $35 million convertible note in 2023. Sources close to the company suggest that investors have been urging for greater financial discipline and tighter cost management.
Twiga is embracing an asset-light model, a trend we’re seeing across Africa and globally. But by streamlining operations and eliminating structural inefficiencies, it becomes more investor-ready. Investors don’t just fund ideas-they fund scalable systems.
