In Nigeria’s sprawling fresh food markets, from the vegetable stalls of Mile 12 in Lagos to the fish docks in Rivers, and the poultry clusters in Jos, one battle rages quietly, daily: the race against spoilage.
Every year, nearly 50% of perishable produce in Nigeria is lost between the farm and the fork. The culprit? A weak cold chain infrastructure, cooling systems and logistics that keep food fresh.
But this story isn’t about loss. It’s about the warriors fighting it.
It’s about a new crop of entrepreneurs who aren’t just cooling produce, poultry, fish, dairy, and meat, they’re cooling a crisis. Their weapons? Solar power, data, logistics, and guts.
Let’s meet them.
It started in Owerri… with a radio farmer and a big idea.
Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a radio broadcaster turned agritech visionary, saw firsthand how farmers lost their income to heat. So, in 2015, he founded ColdHubs, solar-powered, walk-in cold rooms built right in open-air markets and farm clusters.
His innovation? A pay-as-you-store model. Farmers rent crates by the day, cooling their produce 24/7 and extending shelf life from 2 to 21 days.
Today, ColdHubs operates 58 hubs across 28 states, has saved over 42,000 tonnes of food, boosted 5,240 farmers’ incomes by 50%, and created jobs for over 100 women.
Ikegwuonu didn’t just build cold rooms. He built resilience.
Then came Lagos… where sunlight met chill.
In 2020, two young minds – Babajide Oluwase and Michael Akinsete – looked at the same problem and saw a different angle. What if cooling wasn’t just affordable, but mobile and modular?
They co-founded Ecotutu, a solar-powered cold chain company that combines renewable energy with flexible pricing. Their “pay-as-you-chill” model brings refrigerated units to markets and farm gates alike.
With Ecotutu, post-harvest losses in their partner clusters have dropped by 85%, and produce like tomatoes and okra now survive up to three weeks instead of two days.
They’ve brought cooling to the last mile—without plugging into the grid.
Read also: Mapping Nigeria’s cold chain opportunities: Where the cold heat is rising
Meanwhile, across town, an AI-driven chill was rising.
Joy Edeani, founder of Cold Alive, believes cold storage isn’t just about hardware, it’s about data.
Her startup combines solar energy with artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) to offer predictive analytics, real-time temperature monitoring, and smart storage allocation. Farmers, many of them women, no longer have to guess, they know exactly when to store, sell, or ship.
Cold Alive’s smart cold hubs are a lifeline in rural communities where electricity is unreliable but ambition is constant. Her mission: democratize cooling. And she’s doing it, one AI-powered hub at a time.
Back in Ilorin, a poultry farmer had had enough.
Ope Olanrewaju lost thousands of naira in a single season when his fresh chickens spoiled en route to the market. Instead of quitting, he founded Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics in 2014.
His solution? Refrigerated transport + storage = end-to-end cold chain.
Today, Kennie-O provides logistics for fresh produce, poultry, and processed foods, preserving nutrients and profits across Nigeria. He’s grown from one reefer truck to a fleet, covering hundreds of kilometers daily.
Ope turned a loss into a logistics empire. He’s now one of the few operating fully integrated cold chain services outside Lagos.
And in Abuja, the off-grid revolution began.
In Nigeria’s rural belt, where electricity is a rumor and diesel is gold, Benjamin Mebele saw opportunity. His startup, Flourish Cold Chain, launched with a mission to power freshness using only the sun.
Deploying solar-powered refrigeration to off-grid villages, Flourish Cold Chain extends produce shelf life from 2 to 10 days. Through a pay-as-you-go model, it allows smallholder farmers to access refrigeration for pennies on the hour.
His systems are now running in Kogi, Lagos, and Niger, and his target is clear: reduce post-harvest losses by 20% for 10,000 farmers.
The Bigger Picture: Cooling an Industry
These five founders are more than entrepreneurs. They are engineers of hope, fighting food loss in a country where post-harvest losses are worth ₦3.5 trillion annually.
Their innovations span:
Solar-powered cold storage
Pay-as-you-use pricing
AI for predictive maintenance
Cold logistics for meats, dairy, and vegetables
Women-focused employment and access
They operate across terrains—markets, farms, and rural belts—scaling technology that meets Nigeria where it is, not where we wish it was.
The Road Ahead
In a country where 40–60% of fruits and vegetables perish before reaching consumers, these cold chain entrepreneurs are quietly rewriting the script. They are ensuring that what grows gets eaten. That what’s farmed brings wealth. That food doesn’t rot in silence.
They’re not just cooling produce. They’re cooling the heat of Nigeria’s food insecurity.
And they’re just getting started.
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