Ghanaian startup FreezeLink is distributing food and medicine for “the Next Billion” using cold chain technologies, and has built a serious roster of customers since seeing growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Formed in 2018 by Owusu Akoto, FreezeLink stores and transports cold food and medicine for customers, and wholesales perishable food, whereby it uses its cold chain to off-take food products from food producers and distribute them to retailers around the country.
It does this, with an engineering team focused on building cold chains where they do not exist, using IoT and solar-enabled solutions.
“The gap in the market is the absence of unbroken cold chains – storage, transport and the engineers to maintain both – that connect farms and factories to local and global end consumers,” said Akoto.
Since its launch, FreezeLink has grown its customer base by 300 per cent, with customers including Unilever, General Mills, Walmart-owned retailer Game, and farmers – who FreezeLink is connecting to local and global markets. The startup has so far been contracted to deliver work in three countries – Ghana, Togo and Benin.
“In Benin we are being contracted, as part of a World Bank-funded project, to build the fruit and vegetable export terminal at Cotonou International Airport, which will connect local farmers to global markets, through the cold chain,” said Akoto. “We plan to expand to every major market in West Africa by the end of next year, and to be in every Sub-Saharan country, north of South Africa, within the next 7-10 years.”
Self-funded so far, FreezeLink has just received IC approval from a lead investor for its first institutional round. The startup monetises via a pay-per-use basis on its storage and transport offerings, while on the wholesale side it is paid a percentage of the recommended retail price. It also leases-to-own, or sells, its own IoT-equipped, solar-enabled modular cold storage equipment.
