Twiga Foods Transitions Employees to Agents
From Left: Twiga's CE - East Africa - Yebeltal Getachew, Diyo Thomas (Center) - a Reach Truck Operator and TwigaFoods Founder and CEO - Peter Njonjo pose for a photo during today's Media Tour of the Distribution Center to be officially unveiled next week.
By MaryAnne Musilo,
Agri-tech Twiga foods has today addressed the media on their business model transformation. This follows after recent downsizing exercise where over 1000 – strong staff were laid off.
Briefing the media, Twiga foods CEO, Peter Njonjo said that there decided to transition their employees to agents where the benefits are more than just being employees.
“We recently downsized some of our staffs for we realized they can grow more financially as agents. We value our employees and our core aim is to empower them. We have 211 employees on fixed salaries and over 3000 agents,” Said Njonjo.
Twiga is a technology-driven company that connects consumers, vendors and suppliers, providing access to high quality foods, products and retail services in Africa.
Since 2014 when it was founded, they have raised USD 140 million to solve the challenges that face the retail economy in Africa. By some estimates, Africans spend relatively up to ten times more of their disposable income on food compared to developed markets.
This economic challenge to food security is primarily caused by the highly fragmented and inefficient retail market across the continent, where roughly 90% consists of small independent retailers.
“We are dedicated to solving the challenge to food security. We carried out a research and discovered that most consumers shop from dukas and kiosks, we produce high standard products at a very fair price so as to cub the challenge to food security.” he added
In 2019 Twiga foods launched a mobile application ‘soko yetu’ so as to solve the retailers challenges by building an efficient supply chain from distributors to the consumer.
“About 150 years ago, consumers in the United States were spending a similarly exorbitant amount of their income on food, but years of private sector-led investment in retail infrastructure built an efficient supply chain. This is exactly what we are bringing in Africa for we do not have to wait for 150 years to transit.” Njonjo further stated
Twiga, is bringing greater food security to Africa by streamlining supply chains and connecting consumers, vendors and suppliers in the most efficient ways possible.
Mr. Njonjo will officially launch Twiga foods distribution centre on Monday 28th November this year.
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