From sharing grocery costs to food remittances, African tech entrepreneurs are finding ways to keep fresh food affordable
In between her shifts, Zimbabwean nurse Sinothando Mpofu used to go to Bulawayo's open-air markets to buy tomatoes and cabbages for her family of nine - until the country's coronavirus lockdown closed all stalls.
Mpofu worried about where she would get fresh food, until she saw a message in her local church WhatsApp group about Fresh in a Box - one of rising numbers of African tech companies getting fresh food to people under lockdown.
He launched PricePally - described as a digital food cooperative - in November 2019, as a way of letting people buy food online in bulk from farmers and wholesalers and split the cost with other site users.
The app, which started in South Africa nearly one year ago, acts like a version of food remittances, allowing people in South Africa to order groceries for delivery in Zimbabwe.
The company is so confident about the future of online food shopping in Africa that it is launching Malaicha Global next week, said De Beer, so that people can send goods to Zimbabwe from anywhere in the world.
