It is an online market, created early June 2020. The young startupper, Gnepa-Joël Anani, French entrepreneur of Ivorian origin and Founder of AgroLight SARL, thus sees his dream come true through the creation of a new department to promote organic urban agriculture, his specialty.
Strongly committed to agriculture, he noticed after eight years of hard work in the production, processing, consulting, project monitoring and import export of agricultural equipments, that agricultural products do not enjoy the required visibility. This is what led to the birth of the AgroLight Market concept in 2019 with the recruitment of a team of freelancers made up of developers, webmaster, community manager and agricultural technicians, and the launch of this startup that can be likened to the Amazon or Jumia of the agricultural world.
This unique vision in agriculture aims to curb post-harvest losses linked to the lack of sales opportunities, the difficulty of transporting products from rural to urban areas, the isolation of producers in remote areas and the scarcity of fresh and healthy food.
On the functioning of AgroLight Market, the promoter Gnepa-Joël Anani indicates that it is quite simple: “Any producer, retailer or consumer can have access to the website. First, each entity, that is the producer, retailer or consumers, have to create accounts with login credentials. The farmer can then, freely, create his own store by registering all of his products that he or she grows. The retailer can search for potential products and also create his own store to resell them later. And ultimately the buyers or the consumers can research and find healthy, fresh products to purchase for their personal nutrition,” he explains.
All products that go into human consumption are welcome in the virtual marketplace, AgroLight Market. “I want to clarify that a dedicated team makes sure that nothing other than these types of products are shown on the platform. Indeed, we want it to be 100% dedicated to the agricultural world,” says the startupper. To run this virtual market, Gnepa-Joël Anani added 4 new freelance ICT specialists to his 8 permanent employees, for the administration of the platform.
The platform currently covers Abidjan, the main urban center of Côte d’Ivoire. The medium and long term objective is to adequately supply the whole of Abidjan first, then all of Côte d’Ivoire and possibly the West Africa sub-region. “We also want to offer products for export, to people who do not live in Africa. Concretely, our hope is that someone who lives in Singapore, for example, be able to order rice from a large scale producer in Ivory Coast through our AgroLight Market platform,” says Mr. Anani.
The platform is currently subject to a communication campaign to attract as many producers, retailers and consumers as possible. The team intends to focus on food products, especially what fits into the daily consumption of local populations, to facilitate their sales. The promoter’s ambition is to demystify online transactions: “The vision for AgroLight Market is to become the number one platform in the agricultural world. We plan to position AgroLight Market on the world market so that any exchange of food products entering or leaving Côte d’Ivoire goes through this platform. To do this, we are committed to communicating as much as possible in order to demystify online orders, secure payment methods and facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers,” he explains.
The innovative initiative is spreading its wings in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, a difficult period for everyone around the world, but fortunately, in its preventive measures, the Ivorian Government did not confine agricultural organizations. “We were able to circulate of course with an authorization in the secondary cities and to be able to continue to supply our networks with food products. However, the tense situation forced some agricultural projects to slow down and also reduced the turnover of exported or imported products that came by plane or by ship. I would say that the crisis has affected us moderately since we have been creative in adapting to the new working methods, switching to the digital. This is also one of the things that boosted our platform and precipitated its launch which was earlier scheduled for the end of year 2020,” concludes Gnepa-Joël Anani, the startuppeur who has been able to seize the opportunity in a uncertain context.
By Rostand Meli
Contact AgroLight Market:
AGROLIGHT Group SARL
Innovation serving agriculture
In Côte d’Ivoire
Office : Cocody Angré 22ème, Immeuble N’zi
Field school : Cocody Angré château, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Téléphone : +225 22 53 75 67 / +225 09 37 70 41 (Whatsapp)
In France : Versailles Grand Parc
2 Place de Touraine, 78000, Versailles.
+336(0)9 70 46 51 46 (FR_FIXE) +33(0) 6 09 53 25 69 (WhatsApp)
Other useful contacts:
– Email: [email protected]
– Web sites: www.agrolight-group.com
– https://agrolightmarket.com/
– Facebook: AgroLight Group
– Instagram: agrolightgroupci
– Twitter: @agrolightgroup
– Youtube: AgroLight