Seeds&Chips, an Italian firm has announced its plans to set up a food innovation hub in Rwanda. The estimated investment is around $50 million and $100 million and will focus on using technology to improve food value system.
The announcement was made during the recently held Global Food Innovation Summit in Kigali. Marco Gualtieri, Founder and Chairman of Seeds&Chips announced that the company proposes to open 10 food innovation hubs in 10 countries in Africa, starting with Rwanda. The other countries include Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, Morocco, South Africa, and Egypt. “The idea is that we could invest between $50 million and $100 million in each country because we think we can create many jobs’ Gualtieri added. The focus of the hubs will be on technologies in food production, and precision agriculture which is expected to build a multibillion-dollar industry in the food processing sector among others. According to the World Bank sources, Africa’s food market is predicted to reach $1 trillion per year by 2030 from $313 billion in 2013. Gualtieri remarked that food processing is ‘the most important, the biggest industry in the world in terms of occupation, and in terms of money. So, we are just working on innovating this industry. The plan is to interconnect the hubs so that recipient countries can benefit through learning different skills.
