Added: Jan 21, 2021
Last edited: Jun 06, 2022
ColdHubs is a post-harvest, solar-powered, cooling-as-service solution in Nigeria. By offering a solution to store and preserve perishable foods that adequately meets the financing needs of smallholder farmers, ColdHubs is an effective solution to the issue of post- harvest losses in fruits, vegetables and other perishable food in Sub-Saharan Africa.
ColdHubs are installed in major food production and consumption centers (in markets and farms). There, farmers place their produce in clean plastic crates, which are stacked inside the cold room. This extends the freshness of fruits, vegetables and other perishable food from 2 days to about 21 days. [1]
Coldhubs offers farmers a flexible pay-as-you-store subscription model at rates that they can afford, helping to tackle the barrier of access to financing for cold chain solutions and bridges the technological gap for smallholder farmers.
In developing countries, once the fresh fruits and vegetables are harvested and collected, 45% of food spoils mainly due to lack of cold storage. This, in turn, leads to 470 million small farmers losing 25% of their annual income as well as a loss for consumers and an increase in waste. Cooling fresh produce could significantly slow down the rate of deterioration, thereby increasing the storage life of the goods.
Coldhubs Limited in Nigeria has developed a solution to address this problem. They increase the shelf lives of fruits and vegetables from 2 to more than 20 days with a 100% solar-powered walk-in cold room. They can beat the epileptic power supply as well as the high level of post-harvest losses witnessed by local farmers. At food production and consumption centers such as markets and farms, farmers can place their goods into these rooms with solar panels and use the company’s pay-as-you-store system. Next to reducing food waste, increasing healthy food supply, and helping local farmers, the company is planning to be fully self-sustainable and places importance on various sustainable targets, such as creating job opportunities for women.
The cooling storage rooms with solar energy are fully sustainable and reliable since they are using clean energy to keep food fresh and healthy for consumption. In 2019, the 24 operational ColdHubs saved 20,400 tons of food from spoilage for more than 3,000 farmers, increased the household income of these customers by 50% by eliminating food loss, created 48 new jobs for women, and saved 462 tons of CO2 emissions.
Case study source: Forthcoming Circle Economy publication, expected February 2021
Image source: ColdHubs (https://coldhubs.com)
[1] http://www.coldhubs.com/
[2] https://coolcoalition.org/meet-the-global-caas-prize-winner-coldhubs/