The idea of Nitumesokoni was inspired by the true life story of Gerald Magooge (the Co-founder and CEO). Gerald has grown up helping his mother run a retail shop of fruits and vegetables locally known as “Gengeni”. They used to wake-up as early as 4 am every two days and go shopping for fresh produce in the large vegetable markets across the city. After shopping, they leave their products to transporters and go back home with commuter buses. These transporters then deliver products using trucks to each of their limited registered vendors by passing and dropping in their respective retail outlets at late hours of around 12 pm to 2pm. Gerald grew up with a dream of revolutionizing the way of doing this business and helping his mother. Gerald Co-Found Nitumesokoni with Nestory Chacha who is also a CTO helping other thousands of vendors across Africa.

The story behind Nitumesokoni is based on the typical life of an African mother as 7 out of 10 vegetable vendors in Africa are women and girls (UN WOMEN/2020). The retail food market in Sub-Saharan Africa is so informal, fragmented and very dis-organised. Retail food vendors of fresh produce suffer heavy losses due to the perishability nature of their products. To cover for extreme food losses, they sell at higher prices to the final consumers. As a result, consumers in sub-Saharan Africa spend up to 50 percent of their disposable income on food alone (FAO/2021).

Nitumesokoni provides collective demand for vendors’ requirements and sources direct from farms. The company is both a Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) market platform. By B2B it delivers to the vendors directly from farmers, cutting down the number of intermediaries that fragment the market leading to high food prices. By B2C it connects these vendors to the final consumers through Nitumesokoni mobile application. This helps fasterning the movement of stock in the vendors’ outlets, hence reducing food losses and ultimately lower food prices.