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A service for global professionals · Thursday, March 28, 2024 · 699,534,057 Articles · 3+ Million Readers

Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics from Nigeria Crowned Champion of Africa’s First Scaling Up Nutrition Pitch Competition

A Nigerian business is celebrating after winning a competition involving some of the continent’s most exciting enterprises working to improve access to nutritious foods. Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics from Kwarah State was crowned champion of the first Africa edition of the Scaling Up Nutrition Pitch Competition held at the Nutrition Africa Investor Forum (GainHealth.org/knowledge-centre/event/nutrition-africa-investor-forum) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics was established in 2014 to provide reliable cold chain solutions for Nigeria’s food industry, thereby reducing post-harvest losses.

Collecting the award, owner Ope Olanrewaju said, “Winning the pitch competition is so exciting! I am delighted to see recognition for companies working to reduce post-harvest losses. This experience has been wonderful, the training has added value to my business.” 

Organised by the Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network (SBN), the Pitch Competition is an initiative of GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition ), a Swiss Foundation, and the UN World Food Program (WFP), plus local partners.

The competition showcased investment opportunities presented by SMEs working to improve access to nutritious food. Out of more than 450 outstanding entries, 21 SMEs were shortlisted from national pitch competitions in Nigeria, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia.

Concurrent to this pitch competition was a ‘Nutrition Deal Room’ for larger investment opportunities facilitated by Africa Business Magazine with Asoko Insights. Fokko Wientjes, Vice President, Nutrition in Emerging Markets of Royal DSM, a purpose-led, global science-based company active in nutrition who participated in the initiative reported: “With 130 deal room discussions involving 20 investors and more than 20 companies, we can call this first ever Nutrition Africa Impact Forum a success!” All of the companies featured in both the Pitch Competition and in the Nutrition Dealroom comprise a part of GAIN’s pipeline of companies improving access to nutritious food. GAIN will be following up on these exciting investment opportunities as part of its New Nutritious Foods Financing Programme.

These two initiatives took place during the high-level Nutrition Africa Investor Forum attended by over 200 business leaders, policy makers and prominent development campaigners focused on unlocking the business potential of small and medium enterprises working to improve the nutritional quality of the food system across Africa. In addition to looking at private investments in nutrition, the forum called for effective leadership to drive collective action to improve nutrition. The former president of Tanzania H.E. Jakaya Kikwete urged the influential gathering to do everything within their power to tackle malnutrition in order to deliver on national and international obligations and targets to end extreme poverty by 2030. Speaking at the closing ceremony, Saul Morris, Director of Programmes at GAIN, said: “There are concrete things that we can do to scale up access to nutritious food in Africa and there are fantastic people and small and medium enterprises doing them!”

Awards: 

Winner: August Secrets, Nigeria

Winner: Healthy Maisha, Tanzania

Winner: Kulamawe Poultry Industries, Kenya

Winner: Miruku Agro Industria, Mozambique

  •  Grand Prize, SUN Pitch Competition Winner:

Winner: Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics, Nigeria

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Nutrition Africa Investor Forum.

For further information or to attend the Forum, please contact Ishara Callan at I.callan@icpublications.com

For more information on the Scaling Up Nutrition Pitch Competition, please go to https://www.sunpitchcompetition.com/

For more information about GAIN’s Nutritious Foods Financing Program, please go to https://www.gainhealth.org/programs/nutritious-foods-financing/

About Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition:

The organisation was launched at the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Working with partners, GAIN (GainHealth.org) aims at making healthier food choices more affordable, more available, and more desirable. Its purpose is to improve nutrition outcomes by improving the consumption of nutritious and safe food for all people, especially the most vulnerable.

About Royal DSM – Bright Science. Brighter Living.™

Royal DSM is a purpose-led, global science-based company active in nutrition, health and sustainable living. DSM is driving economic prosperity, environmental progress and social advances to create sustainable value for all stakeholders. DSM delivers innovative business solutions for human nutrition, animal nutrition, personal care and aroma, medical devices, green products and applications, and new mobility and connectivity. DSM and its associated companies deliver annual net sales of about €10 billion with approximately 23,000 employees. The company is listed on Euronext Amsterdam. 

The SUN Business Network (SBN):

Hosted by GAIN and the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the SBN mobilises business to support the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement. At the heart of the Movement are 60 country governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America, committed to developing a multi-stakeholder approach to ending malnutrition through national action plans – including business. The SBN supports business at a global and national level to act and invest responsibly in improving nutrition with partners from government, civil society, donors and the United Nations. 

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