FRUITI-CYCLE

Fruiti-cycle is a low cost distribution solution for fruits and vegetables for small scale farmer in Uganda, designed with two major objectives 1. To increase market accessibility for local farmers in rural areas or less served urban areas 2. To eliminate the current 50% post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables happening in the distribution chain due to poor handling, poor storage and poor means of transportation. The product is an electric motorized tricycle mounted with a detachable refrigerated storage unit for conveniently and safely distributing fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruiti-Cycle uses manual peddling energy to generate electricity then converts it up to 50km/hr motorized system. This energy allows a farmer to carry 5 times more produce (up to 300kg carrying capacity) every time unlike the current normal bicycles with 60kg carrying capacity. The energy also allows a farmer to reach far markets in a radius of 100km without getting exhausted unlike the normal bicycles that can only travel as far as 30km before a farmer gets very exhausted. Unlike other motor tricycles in the market, Fruiti-Cycle has a refrigerated storage unit which uses evaporative cooling system powered by solar to prolong the shelf-life of the produce during distribution and to reduce mechanical damages due to poor packaging. The storage unit is also detachable to be used within the market by market vendors to preserve their produce up to five days, significantly reducing the total post-harvest losses from 50% to only 10%.

Reducing the current 50% post-harvest losses in fruits and vegetables to only 10% will not only mean more income available for the over 300 million small holder farmers across the globe (breaking them away from the cycle of poverty and encouraging more production), but also more food available for consumption for over 3 billion people across the globe. This impact shall be measured by general statistics on post-harvest losses reduction in developing countries and approximated implication on the income of the small holder farmers. Our yard stick in measuring the impact shall be the trends and annual updates on United Nations Sustainable Development goals 1 and 2 (Zero poverty and Zero Hunger). Another measure of the impact of our project is its existence as a business. When many farmers are buying our product and we are still in business then that means our product is solving their problem. We shall start with Uganda with 7 million households engaged in horticulture and scale the impact across Africa, Asia and South America with target size of about 300 million small holder farmers.

Our product cost $1,200, which is three times less expensive than the current motor-tricycles in the market. We have already partnered with Uganda National Agricultural Advisory Services as an implementation partner. We are leveraging on their strong relationship with Uganda Farmers Associations, Farmers community SACCO groups and market vendors association as our channel to reach the end users. Our revenue streams shall be through partnership with Micro-finance organizations to deliver our products to groups of farmers and groups of market vendors through loan schemes. Through promotions, community outreaches and radio/Television marketing, we shall build a strong brand and in the middle term we shall expand our sales and use of innovation across Africa, Asia and South America through franchising and licensing model.
To date we have raise 19,000USD from five different awards and we are using it to build our prototype for proof of concept. We shall pilot our product by end of 2016 then see funding organizations for piloting and scaling within Uganda

We believe that solving the problem facing us in the 21st century needs a more multi-disciplinary approach. All the six team members come from different professional background, yet we have all been part of subsistence agriculture while growing up, either through direct engagement in the farm during academic holidays or sometimes being in the market to sell the produce to supplement on the household income that supported our studies. We have not only experienced this problem, but we have the passion and the skills to provide the solutions for our immediate communities and the whole world. TEAM MEMBERS. 1. BEN WOKORACH 27yeras old (Team Leader, innovator and product designer, Bachelor of Architecture graduate from Makerere University) 2. RICHARD OBONYO 27 years old (production designer and Mechanical Engineer graduate from Kyambogo University) 3. NELSON MANDELA 25 years old (Business planner and Accountant with level 2 ACCA, business and accounting graduate from Makerere University) 4. KEVIN AKELLO OJARA 24 years old (Researcher, social worker and Food science and Technologist, final year student at Makerere University) 5. RACHEL AITARU OLEMA 24 years old (Soft wear Engineer and Website/social media administrator, Final year student at Makerere University) 6. MORRIS OPIYO 24 years old (Mechanical and production Engineer, final year student at Kyambogo University) TEAM AWARDS/HONORS $ 6,000 Global award at Les Foundation Business plan competition 2016 (http://www.lesfoundation.org/competition/2016.html ) $2,500 Take it to the farmer award at Thought For Food global summit 2016 (https://twitter.com/hashtag/fruiticycle ) $ 4,900 Resilient Africa Network Youth Spark innovation grant 2016 $5,000 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program 2016 $600 One Health Central and East Africa 2016

start-up stage