ENdep

Although Africa contains over 50% arable land, African crops yield five times less than the global average. Since food loss usually occurs at the early stages of the food value chain due to inadequate storage and cooling facilities and electricity supply, this presents a strong business opportunity to strengthen the food cold chain in the region.

ENdep Limited, a Tanzanian turnkey ESCO, provides customized end-to-end solutions aimed at mitigating energy costs and increasing efficiency. Cooling is offered as a service to smallholders, suppliers and aggregators to preserve food quality and reduce post-harvest loss at an affordable price. Moreover, ENdep offers affordable rental of solar cold rooms, particularly targeting women and youth fish traders.

Besides the positive impacts on businesses, ENdep also contributes to environmental and social impacts. Through the deployment of solar cold rooms, the company helps mitigate GHG, reduce carbon footprint, and create employment especially for women and youth fish traders. Women and youth are empowered through entrepreneurship, by facilitating rental of solar cold rooms at a very lower and competitive cost to allow them to have time to search for more lucrative markets. ENdep employs more than 60% of women, with 150 fish traders belonging to women and 240 fish traders to youth.

With the support of the PFAN journey since December 2020, ENdep limited was able to raise a grant from the Nordic Development Fund/Energy and Environment Partnership Fund (EEP), worth close to USD 400,000. Additional financing targets are also set for ENdep, with ongoing discussions at the time of writing with several individual investors that have expressed interest.