Photo: Cold Hubs
In Nigeria, solar-powered cold rooms and cold trucks help small rural farmers get their produce safely to markets and extend its shelf life while there. Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu introduced 'clean cooling' to his country when he created ColdHubs in 2015. The solar-powered walk-in cold rooms extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables from two to 21 days, using a subscription model. In 2021, more than two million crates of fruits and vegetables were stored in 54 company cold rooms and 18 cold rooms managed by small and medium-sized enterprises, saving about 62,700 tons of produce from spoiling. Two solar-powered refrigerated trucks now pick fruits and vegetables directly from farms and deliver them to markets - and ColdHubs plans to build cool rooms in hard-to-reach communities where farmers can store harvests while waiting for pick up. Ikegwuono wants to provide at least a 100-ton storage cold room to all 36 states, up from the current 3-6 tons, and to build a solar-powered fruit and vegetable market.
|
|
More:
