Ghanaian agri-tech platform SankofaFresh puts data to work against post-harvest losses

Ghanaian agri-tech startup SankofaFresh is leveraging data and machine learning to combat post-harvest food losses in the country. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), sub-Saharan Africa loses 23% of its food between harvest and retail, with fruits and vegetables suffering the highest losses. In Ghana, this translates to 30-50% of fruits and vegetables being lost along the value chain, which impacts smallholder farmers' incomes and limits food availability for consumers.

SankofaFresh employs two key tools to address this issue: cold-chain monitoring and a matching system. The former involves temperature and humidity sensors in storage rooms and delivery trucks that send data to a dashboard, alerting users to produce at risk of spoiling. The latter matches harvests with buyers based on volume, location, and quality to ensure timely delivery.

Leehouse and Chemical Ventures, a food manufacturer in Accra, is the platform's first commercial user. They process Ghanaian staples like gari, plantain, and cocoyam fufu, and export to the United States and Canada. Since adopting SankofaFresh in March 2025, Leehouse has reduced its plantain spoilage from one in five loads to one in ten over the past year.

The platform's co-founder, Joshua Kojo Aduampong Mantey, is also a PhD researcher in chemical engineering at Northeastern University, where he uses machine learning to study the gut's mucus lining. He developed the model estimating spoilage risk from temperature and transit-time data as well as the farmer-to-buyer matching algorithm. Mantey aims to extend monitoring to two more processors in 2027 and publish loss-reduction data.