The ghost in the machine: Twiga Foods' bitter harvest

After more than a decade, one of Kenya's most talked about and celebrated agritech startups, Twiga Foods, underwent voluntary administration.

This followed various changes in strategy which included a series of layoffs that were positioned as downsizing, as well as the establishment of different business units.

Looking back, one particular change in its strategy should have served as a tacit admission that it had failed to meet the initial ambition it set out to achieve: disrupting the agricultural supply chain and edging out middlemen.

Twiga Foods was founded in 2014 and commenced with banana distribution in Nairobi as its proof of concept.

Using a digital platform, it connected farmers and retail vendors in a bid to build efficiency into supply chains as well as make produce more affordable and accessible.

After it established a core distribution network, together with the necessary logistical infrastructure, it later added other types of produce including fruits and vegetables.

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According to a notice on the website of International Finance Corporation (IFC), one of the key initial investors in Twiga: "The company set out to facilitate the effective and efficient matching of demand and supply in a highly fragmented market, thereby eliminating waste and reducing food prices for mass market end-consumers."

The notice added that "Twiga has two key client/value propositions: (i) guaranteed farmgate offtake for farmers on the platform with payment made within 48 hours through mobile money, significantly improving farmers' cash flow and (ii) convenience for small-scale informal vendors on the platform through in-shop delivery within 18 hours of being ordered."

Between 2014 and 2025, Twiga raised an estimated US$150 million through various funding rounds that included venture capital firms and international financial institutions.

Between 2022 and 2025, Twiga evolved and spun off different business entities including Twiga Fresh – established in 2022 to undertake commercial farming – and a year later, Twiga Foods One was established to look after its trading and distribution activities.

2024 saw the setting up of Twiga Tatu SEZ, a unit that would look after its logistics, storage and agro-processing at Tatu City, a designated special economic zone.

Finally, in 2025, it established a corporate venture and investment vehicle called Kimo Kali Holdings. It is through this entity that it acquired three local distributors engaged in business-to-business (B2B) wholesale distribution of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) from leading manufacturers.

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These three distributors had a combined reach that covered the capital and its surroundings, the coastal region to the east and the western side of Kenya.

Twiga's first foray into farming, through the leasing of a 1,600-acre farm in Kenya's Taita Taveta county by Twiga Fresh, was more than a subtle signal that it had not succeeded in breaking the hold middlemen had over the market.

By venturing into farming, it sought to become a producer and create its own supply chain over which it would have total control and in which it would not need to supplant any middlemen.

On the strength of that venture, and perhaps while also seeking to urgently scale up during a period when it direly needed to fill its coffers, it entered into a land leasing partnership with the government of Kenya, under an existing agricultural project.

Its sojourn into the Galana Kulalu project entailed leasing 20,000 acres where it planned to trial the growing of maize with a shorter yield time - aiming for three crops a year.

That plan dovetailed nicely with the government's key objectives for the project: job creation (in one of Kenya's poorest counties, Kilifi) and bolstering food security (via the production of two million bags of maize).

However, after the cracks started to appear, this partnership was later ceded to another company, Selu Limited, which took over Twiga's lease.

To date Selu is reported to be engaged in the development and operation costs of the project.

Despite handing over this venture to Selu Limited, one issue that may still raise questions during the process of administration is why Twiga elected to undertake the leasing of 20,000 acres even before a key component of the government project – a 300 million cubic meter dam – had even been built.

Twiga Foods was founded in 2014 and in August 2026 financial troubles led the company to enter voluntary administration. (Source: Twiga Foods)

By moving with haste, Twiga would have taken on additional overheads through fuel costs to run irrigation pumps located in the river Galana instead of waiting for the dam's completion and related channels which would have delivered water via gravity.

The government has since taken steps to make more firm commitments with Selu and other partners under public private partnership (PPP) arrangements and has also contracted the construction of the water reservoir needed for irrigation.

It now plans to designate the Galana Kulalu project as an agricultural special economic zone to attract more investors and partnerships.

Looking at the overall timeline of Twiga's existence, especially the crucial years in which spending on new ventures and acquisitions peaked, the establishment of new entities was strategic in the sense that it helped spread risks and protect some of Twiga's assets from claimants who had started looming large on the horizon.

One could even go as far as to say that the creation of new entities served one overarching goal: to separate parts of the business that attracted the most risk (Twiga Foods and Twiga Foods One) from the parts that could still play a role in Twiga's future redemption (Twiga Fresh, Twiga Tatu SEZ and Kimo Kali).

As it were, the latter still have great latitude to continue operating, serving various supply chain players and venturing into new farming businesses.

Of special interest would be the three newly acquired FMGC distributors through whose networks Twiga could still have another go at the fresh produce market, albeit without the initial ambition of dislodging middlemen.

The renaming of the two beleaguered entities, Twiga Foods Limited and Twiga Foods One Limited, to Templar Field Limited and GT Flow Limited, appears to have been agreed sometime before the two business units went under administration.

It is likely that this move anticipated the negative publicity that would arise from coverage of the announcement of administration, as well as future negative publicity created through legal proceedings and accompanying media coverage.

As such, the name change protects Twiga's brand equity and insulates existing operating entities (especially Twiga Fresh and Twiga Tatu SEZ) from negative publicity.

Around August 2026, Twiga leaned on Kenya's Insolvency Act by going into administration.

It invoked section 541 (2) of the Act which served to trigger an automatic moratorium on claims or litigation by creditors, thereby acting a strategic bunker to safeguard the assets of those parts of the business that were in distress.

This process was done for the newly named GT Flow Limited (formerly Twiga Foods One) and then for Templar Field Limited (formerly Twiga Foods Limited).

Twiga now forms an important part of the curriculum for many different players.

It has yielded many valuable lessons, not just for players looking to venture into farming and agribusinesses but also those hoping to disrupt or evolve the logistics supply chain.

For investors, perhaps one lesson is that longevity does not necessarily translate into viability, especially when the continued injection of funds masks underlying issues.

Another is that entering peripheral areas or rationalizing the business structure and varying the initial business model may be a natural evolutionary step, but only when it does not drain the coffers faster than they can be replenished through revenue generation.

One could also argue that the continuous shifts in strategies, coupled with the injection of funds that generally preserved a bearish sentiment, helped mask foundational problems with the business model and did not allow risk to show up early and clearly enough to be addressed.

Aside from a dashboard of key performance indicators (like revenue, number of users, staff headcount, etc.), which would ordinarily help gauge performance, one other question that may still be asked during the process of administration is whether Twiga sought to understand – during its formative years – if it was actually having any impact on unseating middlemen from the supply chain.

This is because such feedback should have informed its continued investment and scaling up.

For instance, did middlemen try to form buying cooperatives? Did middlemen seek to pool their resources in terms of transport, storage and distribution in order to counter Twiga's moves? Did middlemen consider aggregating their pricing?

Such market insights would have uncovered much needed details of exactly how far – or if at all – Twiga had successfully disrupted the market.

Rather than rendering palliative care on a business model that was clearly faltering and had not met its ambition, there should have been a mechanism to fail fast by exposing structural and procedural weaknesses and allow for a quick return to the drawing board.

From this analysis, this should have happened just before their foray into farming and eventually their later investments.