Fresh. Trusted. Traceable.

From farm to shelf, we ensure fresh produce is supplied through an unbroken, standardised cold chain, and deliver traceable, premium-quality produce to every consumer. We aim to make a significant impact on global food security.

Partner with us → How it works
Cold chain Traceability Packaged Quality graded Farm to shelf
Batch passport
NF-27-00214 · Vine tomatoes
GRADE A · PASSED
05:40 Harvested at first lightRwamagana corridor · partner cooperative
06:15 Cold intake · Zone A · 9.6 °CKigali hub · never below 8 °C
06:38 Quality checked & gradedFood-safety check passed · Grade A · packed
07:52 On the shelfKacyiru, Kigali · cold chain unbroken

Our vision

Improving Rwanda's fresh food supply ecosystem through a sustainable, traceable cold chain that rewards farmers and raises the quality of food for every consumer.

Our mission

To build a technology-enabled food supply chain network that eliminates post-harvest waste, delivers premium-quality food and fosters agricultural innovation across Rwanda.

Traceability. Velocity. Quality.

The problem

A third or more of Rwanda's fresh produce never reaches a shelf.

Approximately 30 to 40% of all fresh produce in Rwanda is lost after harvest, driven by poor handling and an inefficient supply chain. A field study on tomatoes found 56% of the crop's value lost before it ever reached a retail shelf.

21%
Lost at farm

Harvest is sold fast, to whichever broker arrives, at whatever price. No committed buyer, no agreed price.

11.5%
Lost at collection

Hand-offs at ambient temperature. No cooling, no grading, no record of what moved.

10%
Lost at wholesale

A sequence of informal brokers. Each adds no proper handling, and delay, and unfair price.

13.6%
Lost at retail

The retailer carries the spoilage, so it under-stocks. A restaurant that gets a bad crate absorbs it alone.

Loss range: RAB / University of Rwanda / NAEB post-harvest assessment, 2017; FAO–MINAGRI Pre- & Post-Harvest Crop Losses Pilot Survey, 2021–22. Stage figures measured on tomatoes: UC Davis Horticulture Innovation Lab / Feed the Future, 2018.

The solution

We own the produce until it sells.

A service-based retail platform that streamlines operations, eliminates supply risk and guarantees quality. From our Kigali cold hub, we keep complete ownership of the produce until the final retail sale, so spoilage is our problem, never yours.

For retailers

Zero spoilage risk, traceable produce delivered on schedule, and no cash tied up in stock. You earn only on what sells.

For farmers

A price agreed before harvest, a committed buyer under a signed supply agreement, and payment the same day.

Service-Based Retail

How Service-Based Retail works.

Three steps. We take ownership at the hub and keep it until the final sale.

01

Cooperative farms

  • Agreed price before harvest
  • Paid the same day
  • Signed supply agreement
02

Noza cold hub, Kigali

  • Quality control at the gate, A / B / C grading
  • Rented cold storage, contracted refrigerated transport
  • Batch ID and audit trail on every crate
03

Retail & hospitality

  • Supermarkets: stock stays ours on their shelf
  • Restaurants & hotels: delivered before 8am, paid on delivery
  • Shelf managed daily: faced, rotated, never a gap
Why it works We own the stock from the hub to the final sale. That transfer of risk is what displaces the informal middleman.

Velocity, measured

One morning, end to end.

Minimal handling, maximum velocity. Follow one crate from a field at first light to a Kigali shelf before opening time. The cold line below draws itself as you travel it.

05:10ambient · pre-dawn

Harvest at first light

Partner cooperatives pick tomatoes and peppers in the coolest hours of the day, at a price agreed before harvest.

06:05↓ zone A · 9.6 °C

Into the right cold

Crates arrive at our Kigali hub. Field heat comes out and every batch gets its identity: tomatoes and peppers chilled to their zone, onions routed to the dry store.

06:40held · 8–12 °C

Checked, graded, packed

Quality control at the gate, A / B / C grading, then packing, each pack labelled with a QR code that resolves to its record.

07:52cold · unbroken

On your shelf

Delivered before 8am to supermarkets, restaurants and hotels across Kigali. Cold from field to display.

A Noza Foods refrigerated truck at a supermarket loading bay in Kigali, a staff member wheeling crates of tomatoes and peppers inside
The last mile stays cold: refrigerated transport, dock to display
And after delivery

Temperature and sales data keep flowing, so replenishment matches what your customers actually buy, and the chain that carried this morning's crate is on record for the next one.

The pilot range

Three products. Three storage disciplines.

We launch with a deliberately small range and handle each product exactly the way it needs, because freshness is a per-crop science, not a single cold room.

Ripe vine tomatoes in an open kraft cardboard display crate

Vine tomatoes

Zone A · 8–12 °C

Chilled fast, but never below 8 °C, where chilling injury quietly ruins texture and flavour. Crated apart from sensitive neighbours, because ripening tomatoes give off ethylene.

Green, red and yellow bell peppers in an open kraft cardboard display crate

Bell peppers

Zone A · 8–12 °C

Green, red and yellow: chilling-sensitive and ethylene-sensitive, so they hold their snap only when the air they share is managed. Ours is.

Red and golden onions with dry papery skins in a kraft cardboard display crate

Onions

Dry store · ventilated

A cold room would ruin them. Onions keep best dry, dark and ventilated. Our hub runs a dedicated dry store alongside the cold zones, so every crop gets its own climate.

The range grows as the chain proves itself. Every new product earns its own storage discipline before it ships.

The platform

Every crate carries a record.

Built in-house. Batch traceability, quality-control gating and an append-only audit trail are architectural constraints, not a compliance project for later. An inspection export for any date range, within a day.

Batch traceability

Every crate gets a batch identity at intake. Harvest morning, cooperative, temperature, grade and every movement travel with it to the shelf.

Quality-control gating

No batch reaches stock without a food-safety check. A failed check is quarantined by the system, not by memory, not by a note on a whiteboard.

Append-only audit trail

Every check, temperature and hand-off is written once and never edited: records built for food-safety inspection from day one.

Graded honestly

Three grades. One safety standard.

Every batch is graded at the hub so each buyer gets exactly the quality they're paying for, and nothing sound is wasted along the way.

A

Premium retail

Supermarket shelves

Flawless, uniform produce for supermarket displays: the pack a customer picks up, turns over, and trusts.

B

Kitchen grade

Restaurants · hotels · value retail

The same freshness and safety with cosmetic variation: the quality your kitchen needs at the cost your margins require.

C

Processing channel

Juicing & processing partners

Safe, sound produce below display standard is diverted to processing. it never reaches a retail shelf, and it never becomes waste.

Grading is a quality tier. Safety is absolute. Any batch that fails a food-safety check is quarantined and removed from the chain, whatever its grade. Every check, temperature and movement is logged in records built for food-safety inspection from day one.

Packaged

The pack is the proof.

Everything we promise about a batch travels with it, on the banded pack a customer picks up. Packs load 15–20 to a display crate, straight from our cold van onto your shelf, labels out.

One QR, the whole story

Every pack's code resolves to its batch passport: harvest morning, harvest location, grade, and the cold-chain record end to end.

Cardboard-first, by design

Recyclable corrugated kraft trays with ventilation slots and paper band labels, with film only where food safety and shelf life genuinely demand it.

Grade on the label, honestly

The grade a batch earned at inspection is the grade printed on its band, so every buyer gets exactly the quality they're paying for.

A kraft cardboard punnet of vine tomatoes wrapped with a green Noza Foods band
Noza Foods Vine tomatoes · 500 g pack GRADE A Picked this morning · Rwamagana

The retail pack: 15–20 to a display crate, every label resolves to its batch passport

Shelf management, included

We don't just stock the shelf. We run it.

The produce on your display is still ours until a customer buys it, so keeping that display full, faced and fresh is our job, on every visit. That's the service in Service-Based Retail.

  • Full before opening Stocked cold before 8am, so your display is complete when the first customer walks in.
  • Faced and front-filled Our team fronts every tray on every visit, so the shelf looks deliberate, not picked over.
  • First in, first out Oldest packs sell first, every rotation logged against the batch: freshness by system, not by luck.
  • Spoilage leaves with us Anything past its best comes off the shelf the same day, at our cost, never yours.

Why now

Rwanda's demand for quality food is rising faster than its food system can deliver.

Consumers pay premium prices for produce that arrives bruised, never cooled and untraceable. International grocery chains are opening in Rwanda and need a supplier that can guarantee grade and cold chain. Rentable cold-chain capacity now exists in Kigali, so an asset-light entry is possible for the first time.

USD 525M
Rwanda's vegetable production, per year

376,200 tonnes, 15% of agricultural GDP.

~97%
Sold through informal channels

Poorly organised domestic markets with no cold chain, no grading and no record: the gap we are built to close.

+24%
Hotel rooms, 2020 → 2023

17,078 to 21,232 rooms: kitchens that buy fresh produce daily and pay for reliability.

Sources: CASA, Rwanda Vegetables Inclusive Growth Strategy, 2023 (citing NISR Seasonal Agricultural Survey 2022); NISR Statistical Year Book 2024.

Why Noza Foods

Three kinds of intermediary move Rwanda's produce today. None owns the produce, the cold chain or the record.

Noza Foods does all three.

Today

Market brokers

High volume, low quality, cash only. Produce changes hands at ambient temperature with no grading and no record, and the spoilage risk lands on the retailer.

Noza Foods grades and cools every crate, keeps a record from farm to shelf, and carries the spoilage risk itself.
Today

Farmers delivering direct

Unreliable and seasonal, with a high transport cost per kilo and no cold chain. A restaurant cannot plan its morning around it.

Noza Foods gives farmers an agreed price before harvest and a committed buyer, and gives the kitchen a delivery it can plan around.
Today

Logistics apps

They move goods from A to B. They neither own the inventory nor grade or cool it, so the risk stays with whoever booked the truck.

Noza Foods owns the stock from hub to final sale and delivers before 8am: reliability the buyer never has to manage.

Who we work with

Built for both ends of the chain.

A supermarket produce bay stocked with Noza Foods kraft trays of tomatoes, peppers and onions Supermarkets Zero spoilage risk. Graded produce on the shelf before 8am.

Our produce sits on your shelf while it remains ours. You earn on every sale and never carry the cost of spoilage, and every pack's QR code tells your customers when and where it was harvested.

Become a retail partner → A chef receives a crate of graded vegetables at a restaurant back door at dawn Restaurants & hotels Delivered before 8am. Paid on delivery.

Stop sending staff to the market. Graded produce arrives at your kitchen door with transparent wholesale pricing: reliability a kitchen can plan its morning around.

Order for your kitchen → A cooperative farmer hands over a crate of tomatoes to a Noza Foods field officer Farmers & cooperatives A price agreed before harvest. Paid the same day.

A committed buyer under a signed supply agreement, transparent grading you can verify, and a supplier scorecard that grows your volumes as you grow your quality.

Supply to Noza Foods →

Path to pilot

A pilot that measures, not models.

We run the months to March 2027 as a sequence of proofs (supply, demand, cold chain, team), each one a condition of the pilot gate.

  1. August 2026 Noza Foods Ltd incorporated

    Registered in Rwanda with the Rwanda Development Board; company tax number issued.

  2. September – November 2026 Field validation

    Cooperative visits, buyer interviews, sample deliveries and letters of intent with Kigali retailers and kitchens.

  3. December 2026 Cold-chain partner contract signed

    Rented cold storage in Kigali, pay-per-use: the asset-light model, in writing.

  4. January – February 2027 Pilot team hired, full dry run

    Quality lead, warehouse manager and packers on board; transport contracted, not owned.

  5. March 2027 Go / no-go gate, then the pilot begins

    A 60–90 day pilot in Kigali that measures what the model assumes: real loss, real margin, real on-time delivery.

Where we stand today

A registered company, a platform in build, and a pilot on the calendar.

Noza Foods is pre-pilot by design. The demand-side proof is scheduled for the next three months, and the pilot data is what earns the next stage.

  • Noza Foods Ltd registered in Rwanda, Kigali
  • Founder capital committed and invested
  • Cold-chain partner engaged, Kigali storage priced
  • Traceability platform built in-house, core modules live
  • Pilot range locked: vine tomatoes, bell peppers, onions

Partner with us

Let's talk.

Whether you run a supermarket, a kitchen or a cooperative, if fresh produce matters to your business, we should talk before the pilot fills.

Partnership conversations We're opening partner conversations ahead of our March 2027 Kigali pilot: retailers, kitchens, farmers and cooperatives alike. Contact channels will be published here as we open.

Kigali · Rwanda