According to the USDA,
Nigeria spends over half of household income on food, and there are nine other countries that spend over 40% on food. Four of them are in Africa: Nigeria 56.4%; Kenya 46.7%; Cameroon 45.6%; and Algeria 42.5%
World economic forum
A World Bank report also states that, compared with countries at comparable income levels, goods and services consumed by households in urban Africa are 20 to 30% more expensive and high food prices impose a burden on the household budget. Urban households spend 40 to 60% on food; poorer households spend even more
World Bank research
There are many issues contributing to the problem of high cost of food, it includes lack of infrastructure, waste, low incomes etc. Even though there are government and private sector intervention here and there, food security still remains a major challenge in Nigeria and many other developing nations.
As daunting as this problem is, we have set in motion a sustainable solution that helps Nigerians save money on food. We are leveraging technology to connect consumers to buy food in bulk at wholesale prices directly from wholesalers, farmers and producers.
Users can buy food items at wholesale or decide to share bulk items with other shoppers e.g. 4 people can come together to buy a 50kg bag of rice at a discounted price, saving them money and time as we also deliver to customers doorstep. We are helping families save up to 15%-25% of their monthly spend on food which they can now spend on other important things.
Before we launched Pricepally, we researched the market and created different models that we tested for months, this has given us data and insight to design the best cooperative shopping experience for Nigerians.
During our development phase, we were fortunate to be part of the Alibaba e-founder program in conjunction with UNCTAD, MIT venture scaling boot camp, Ayadalab French German incubator and accelerator program and the Egypt Africa 2019 Investment forum, where we showcased Pricepally to President of Egypt and African Union chairman President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Though Pricepally is in its early stage, we have been recognized as a FoodTech500 company by Forwardfooding, a global collaborative platform for the future of the food and beverage industry.
How it works. Pricepally.com is available on web, Android and iOs apps. Individuals and businesses can join by logging on the website or downloading the app to register and create a profile. They can access a wide range of bulk food items at wholesale prices, they can choose to buy outright or to share a bulk item with other shoppers thereby splitting the cost to get their share delivered to them.
Users can buy bulk items outright by simply clicking add to cart and if they prefer to share with others, they simply click on the pally button from which they can choose an open or close pally.
An open pally is necessarily sharing with the public, it enables users to create a pally deal on any product to share with anyone willing to join via the platform. Whereas a close pally enables users share in private, users can share with people they have a connection with on the platform, this connection is done by following each other on the platform like you would on twitter.
The Pricepally platform innovatively infuses social and commerce which makes it unique and exciting for our users. We have had great feedback about user experience, the quality and quantity of the products and service quality etc. We are seeing fast growth and we are building accordingly. Our vision is to solve this problem across African urban cities starting with Lagos state.
Featured Image Source: Pricepally
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