Clean Cooking for Roadside Food Vendors

We're developing a clean cookstove and fuel made of sugarcane waste for roadside food vendors to reduce their costs while saving trees.

Long description

Acacia Innovations Ltd. manufactures and distributes an eco-friendly alternative to firewood and charcoal made of sugarcane waste called Kuni Safi briquettes. So far, we are the largest supplier of clean cooking fuels to schools in Kenya, with over 250 school customers in 20 counties.

In the last year, the price of charcoal in Kenya has doubled, creating a huge financial challenges for small businesses. Our fuel, Kuni Safi briquettes, is less than half the cost of charcoal and can help small businesses stay afloat. Yet it must be used with an energy saving cookstove. None of the clean cookstoves on the market are viable for roadside food vendors, since they are either too small and flimsy for cooking large portions or they are built-in-place which is not practical for most vendors who carry their cookstoves with them to the market.

We have designed a prototype for the first cookstove that can use our Kuni Safi briquettes, but is highly portable and affordable for small-scale food vendors. We will target sales of our cookstove and fuel to market women selling things like fish, chapati & chips as well as food kiosks and informal restaurants. This project will eliminate the use of charcoal and firewood as well as help micro-enterprises to increase their profits.

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