Nigerian startup Farmcrowdy to roll out retail meat hubs with acquisition of Best Foods

Nigerian agritech startup Farmcrowdy plans to roll out retail meat hubs across Nigeria in the second quarter of this year, following the acquisition of the country’s Best Foods this week.

Farmcrowdy — which was founded in 2016 by Onyeka Akumah (pictured above, centre right shaking hands with with Best Foods chairman Emmanuel Ijewere), Akindele Phillips, Tope Omotolani and Jimoh Maiyegun — announced the acquisition in a blog post on Wednesday (5 February).

The startup did not say how much it had paid to acquire the company, revealing only that the acquisition will see Farmcrowdy owning majority stakes in Best Foods L&P Limited including its assets, team and customer contracts to supply meat across Nigeria.

Farmcrowdy’s acquisition of Best Foods will allow it to roll out meat hub across the country

Best Foods is an agribusiness group with over 16 years’ experience in the processing of livestock, as well as the farming and marketing of agricultural produce. The company is one of the largest meat processors in Lagos, Nigeria and has the capacity to process 120 to 200 bulls a day.

Farmcrowdy’s model is to connect farm sponsors to farmers in a bid to increase high-quality food production. The startup does this by using sponsors’ funds to secure land, buy implements, and to insure farmers as well as their produce.

Farmcrowdy said in the blog post that the acquisition will enable it to become the preferred source of processed livestock across Nigeria starting with Lagos. The expanded business will serve over 50 meat markets (including beef and poultry) across the south-western zone in Nigeria and will manage over 100 consumer endpoints.

Akumah told CNBC in an interview yesterday that the idea is to work with Best Foods to increase Farmcrowdy’s capacity of processing bulls from the current 45 a day that the startup serves to eateries around Lagos, to 120 bulls a day.

It then wants to allow consumers to order meat via the startup’s platform that they can then pick up at one of the company’s retail hubs, which it plans to roll out.

Said Akumah in the blog post: “Today, this acquisition of Best Foods L&P Limited is a major milestone for the entire team knowing that we only launched Farmcrowdy three years ago with a bunch of 20 and 30 year olds.

“I grew up learning about the impact Best Foods and Mr Ijewere had in the agriculture space in Nigeria. We are absolutely delighted to welcome him to the Board of Farmcrowdy as we continue to grow this space together,” he added.

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Featured image: Farmcrowdy CEO Onyeka Akumah pictured, centre left, shaking hands with Best Foods chairman Emmanuel Ijewere (Farmcrowdy via Facebook)