MEET COVER STAR Peter Njonjo: 'Africans are Spending a Significant Amount on Food'

🎥 Jun 17, 2023 📺 Forbes Africa ⏱ 3m 👁 579 views

"Our story started with a banana." “Yes, a banana,” Peter Njonjo attests, as he sits down, adjusts his glasses and looks right into ...

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About Peter Njonjo

Peter Njonjo, co-founder and former CEO of Twiga Foods, has spoken extensively about the company's mission to address inefficiencies in Africa's food supply chain. He has described the retail industry in Africa as "broken" and "very informal," noting that "pretty much nothing has changed over the last 50–60 years." Njonjo has cited the example of a tomato costing about $100 a metric ton in California compared to $420 in Nairobi and $2,500 in Kinshasa, arguing that "some of the world's poorest consumers are paying some of the highest prices when it comes to basic food items." He has stated that Africans on average spend half their disposable income on food, a figure he compared to the United States 150 years ago. Njonjo has said Twiga Foods aims to "leverage technology to build efficiency into some of these supply chains" and that "technology could provide a solution to accelerate food security." Njonjo resigned as CEO of Twiga Foods and stepped down from its board in January 2024, though he remains a shareholder with a stake valued at over $1 million. He previously spent 21 years at The Coca-Cola Company, where his last role was President of West and Central Africa. Njonjo has credited his wife with encouraging him to sell their matrimonial home to finance Twiga Foods in its early days. He has also spoken about the importance of mentorship, saying that "there are many dreamers like myself" in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and that supporting them "really keeps me focused on the agenda of ensuring that we continue driving this multiplier effect."

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Peter Njonjo's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (7 segments)

Peter Njonjo0:00

It all starts from a point of inspiration, and for us our inspiration was around the banana.

Interviewer0:06

Right, that's interesting.

Peter Njonjo0:18

The key thing here was that bananas in a supermarket in London were cheaper than in a supermarket in Nairobi. The banana in London had traveled 4,000 miles from Latin America to London, and the banana in Nairobi had merely traveled 300 to 400 kilometers. We asked ourselves why this is the case, and by answering that question we started uncovering the issue around food inefficiency. We realized that because the retail industry in Africa is so fragmented with so many middlemen moving from the farms all the way to retail...

We've evolved quite a bit in terms of our strategy and how we think about the sector. A key thing is that we've also maintained a lot of connectedness to the ecosystem and shared our thoughts and views about how we solve this problem. I guess that journey is what has gotten us to this point and also gotten everybody talking about our model.

Not to say that you keep on changing where the organization is going, but once you have clarity about what you want to achieve, then you can give yourself flexibility in how you achieve it. That's how we have looked at our business. We've been very clear about where the company needs to go, but very flexible about how we get there. That iterative approach allows you to adapt to what's happening in the environment.

I think the key thing is looking at where Africa is today. On average, consumers on the continent are spending half their disposable income on food. When I compare that to the US, that's about where the US was 150 years ago. After the Civil War, the average consumer in the US was spending 52 percent of their disposable income on food. When you're having half of your disposable income as a continent going to food, it means there's a segment of the population living a very fast lifestyle spending five to ten percent of disposable income on food, and another segment at the bottom spending 60 to 70 percent.

The key thing is that not only are Africans spending a significant amount of money on food relative to their income, but also in absolute terms. That means there's a huge opportunity around efficiency, and those are the opportunities we're trying to identify and find ways to solve to make food more affordable.