Farm to Feed Is Turning Food Loss Into Opportunity, and Its AfricArena Journey Continues.

From an AfricArena award in Nairobi in 2023 to more than $1.7 million in disclosed funding and a new investment from Proparco, Kenya’s Farm to Feed is demonstrating what can happen when an ambitious African startup turns a major structural challenge into a scalable business.

Food loss is one of Africa’s most persistent  and underappreciated  challenges. Across sub-Saharan Africa, a significant proportion of fruits and vegetables never make it to market. For smallholder farmers, that means lost income. For consumers, it means inefficient supply chains and higher costs. And for the continent as a whole, it means valuable land, water, energy and agricultural inputs are effectively wasted.

Kenyan agritech company Farm to Feed is tackling that problem by connecting smallholder farmers with predictable demand and creating markets for produce that might otherwise never reach consumers.

And for AfricArena, Farm to Feed’s story is particularly meaningful.

From AfricArena Nairobi award winner to growth-stage impact company

Farm to Feed was an award winner at the 2023 AfricArena Nairobi Summit, where the company received the Most Innovative Business Model award.

The company subsequently returned to the AfricArena community, pitching at AfricArena Grand Summits as it continued to build its business and expand its impact.

Since its 2023 recognition, the trajectory has been significant.

Farm to Feed has raised more than $1.7 million in disclosed funding, including a $1 million pre-seed round combining equity and grants, followed by a $1.5 million growth round announced in 2025. The latest investment comes from Proparco, which has committed a further €150,000 to support the company’s expansion.

This is exactly the kind of founder journey that AfricArena seeks to follow: not simply celebrating startups at a single event, but remaining connected to entrepreneurs as they move from early validation to commercial growth and institutional investment.

Building a smarter food supply chain

Farm to Feed’s model addresses a fundamental inefficiency in the agricultural value chain.

The company uses technology to connect farmers to demand from businesses including hotels, schools, hospitals, food processors and other institutional buyers. By giving farmers greater visibility into what the market needs, Farm to Feed can coordinate sourcing, logistics, warehousing, sales and payments more efficiently.

Importantly, the company also creates commercial opportunities for produce that would traditionally be rejected because of appearance, size or surplus.

Its initiatives include Grade Rescue, which helps bring imperfect produce into the market, and Ready to Use, which adds value and convenience to fresh produce.

The result is a model that is simultaneously about farmer income, food security, commercial efficiency and climate impact.

According to Proparco, Farm to Feed now has more than 5,500 registered farmers and over 160 B2B customers, while the company has recorded more than 100% annual growth over three consecutive years.

Its 2025 impact reporting also highlighted an 81% reduction in food loss on participating farms and a substantial increase in farmer income.

Why this matters beyond Kenya

The opportunity Farm to Feed is addressing is not uniquely Kenyan.

Africa’s agricultural markets remain highly fragmented, with significant inefficiencies between producers and end consumers. As the continent’s population and urban middle class grow, building more efficient food supply chains will become increasingly important.

Farm to Feed’s model demonstrates how technology can be applied not simply to digitise an existing process, but to reorganise the economics of an entire value chain.

That is particularly relevant for African entrepreneurship: some of the continent’s most significant opportunities sit at the intersection of technology and deeply physical sectors such as agriculture, energy, logistics and healthcare.

Proparco backs the next phase

Proparco’s €150,000 investment provides additional capital for Farm to Feed to invest in its technology, operational capabilities, farmer network and value-added activities.

The investment is also 2X-aligned, reflecting the company’s founding team of women entrepreneurs.

For Farm to Feed CEO Claire van Enk, the ambition is ultimately much bigger than reducing food waste. The company is building infrastructure that can help farmers access markets more reliably while ensuring that more of what Africa already produces actually reaches consumers.

That journey,  from an early-stage African startup to an increasingly institutionalised, impact-driven business  is precisely what makes Farm to Feed’s story worth following.

And the journey continues at AfricArena

There is a fitting symmetry to Farm to Feed’s latest chapter.

Three years after being recognised as an innovative African business at the 2023 AfricArena Nairobi Summit, and after continuing to engage with the AfricArena community and pitch at Grand Summits, Claire van Enk will return to the stage at the upcoming AfricArena Grand Summit in Cape Town.

This time, she won’t be there simply as an emerging founder looking for visibility.

She will be sharing the experience of building, raising capital and scaling a company tackling one of Africa’s most important food-system challenges.

From Nairobi award winner to more than $1.7 million in disclosed funding, and now backed by Proparco, Farm to Feed is a powerful example of how African founders turn structural challenges into scalable businesses.

And we’re delighted that Claire will be back with the AfricArena community to tell us what comes next.