Annona - Global Food Trade Platform

About Solution

Annona helps food buyers trace the origins of their food from the farm to the store in order to build more sustainable and affordable global food markets. Annona has its roots in East Africa, where it built a farmgate Android application to make traceability accessible in rural locations in developing countries. The Annona platform is used by buyers from the farm to the retail store.

Foodborne illnesses affect almost 50 million people in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC. When issues arises, retailers have a long, fragmented paper trail to understand the origin of their food. Additionally, consumers want to trust the origins of their food and know that what they are buying is sustainable. Current food audit systems do not operate quickly enough to get consumers and retailers the information they desire.

On the other hand, 500 million small-scale farmers want sustainable markets to sell into, and with world food demand increasing 70% by 2050 the way the world buys its food needs to change.

The total global food market is valued at trillions but specific to the revenue potential we are working in, the addressable market is valued at $1.3 billion, with our initial target market worth $115 million. Our revenue model is currently a freemium model for exporters and importers and earning a fee for financial transactions from partnering financial institutions.

Annona leverages supply chains similar to these sophisticated and extensive global agricultural supply networks. They use a Dandelion business development model to reach new customers and small-scale farmers.

The first customers are in Kenya, then East Africa. We acquire customers in East Africa by leveraging the collective regional network. The first few customers on board (who buy from over 10,000 small-scale farmers) have made referrals to their buyers and their customers.

While global traceability solutions are beginning to emerge with major and small value chains, it's a very nascent concept. Annona is a global solution that has been built with local intelligence, very different from our competitors who build in Europe and deploy in developing countries. We know from experience trading and using design thinking product development what incentives are important for those who work closest with farmers. Our product is also universal, allowing all food chains to adopt Annona.

Annona's vision is to fundamentally change how we buy and sell food around the world, to improve the lives of all farmers that sell into global markets. After reaching 25,000 farmers on the platform, Annona has developed its first financial product. Through a joint venture with a German company, Sprout Insure, Annona is launching Africa's first blockchain-backed microinsurance product in 2019 to tens of thousands of smallholder farmers.

Our biggest challenge: Annona is working to connect very fragmented value chains, from small-scale farmers in rural areas to retail consumers all over the world. These value chains have varying actors and marketing to most of them is capturing the long-tail. Annona faces a challenge to market to, reach and delight millions by bringing the most universal and scalable global software.

1

Comments

Contact Us

If you have any questions