ProFish, Ghana’s Uber for fresh fish orders and deliveries was founded in 2018 to connect fish farmers to ready market in the country and promote food security while at it.
ProFish, founded by a team of young entrepreneurs led by Caroline Pomeyie, who’s the co-founder and CEO, aims to transform the fishing industry by helping address the market access problem and the post-harvest losses poor fish farmers in Ghana experience.
With their platform dubbed Lojaanor, fish farmers are able to sell their fish harvest directly to customers by simply dialing a code on their mobile phones.
The platform allows the fish farmers to indicate the fish in their possession and then allow customers to select and order instantly via the same platform. The firm is working with a logistics company for orders and dropoff to customers’ homes, offices, eateries, processors and organizations.
Recently, ProFish won in the early-stage category 2019 Pitch AgriHack at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Accra taking home €7,500). Kenya’s Savanna Circuit Tech came in second and took home €5,000.
Online-based fish ordering and delivery service
The online-based fish ordering and delivery service ProFish runs deliveries in Accra and also runs a sales depot as its pickup station. The business started out as market research during the Kosmos Innovation Challenge to help solve revenue leakages in the fisheries industry.
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According to the team, Ghana consumes about 950,000 metric tonnes of fish annually but only produces nearly half of that. As the third-largest consumer of fish on the continent, the Ghanian entrepreneurs so that ProFish could help improve market access to increase potential revenues and track supply and demand.
Farmers also lack experience in logistics, storage, market information among others. ProFish would help them manage their farms and access to markets.
Through USSD technology
“We decided to change focus by connecting them to customers and providing transportation assistance,” said the firm. “Through USSD technology, a farmer can dial a short code which they use to send us their location and tonnes in harvested produce.”
Customers also have shortcodes to order fish from the platform. ProFish picks up the order from a farmer, repackages and dresses it for the customer then drops or allows the customer to come and pickup.
Last year, the Accra-based ProFish won the Kosmos Agricultural Challenge and received USD$50,000 in funding to fine-tune its technology and sign up more fish farmers on the platform. The web, mobile and USSD platform makes money from fees charged from services they provide.
