For creating a model that was able to save 20,400 tons of fruits and vegetables in 2019, ColdHubs Limited has been named winner of the 2020 Cooling as a Service (CaaS) Prize.
ColdHubs in Nigeria was selected as the winner of the Cooling as a Service (CaaS) Prize thanks to their exemplary CaaS model that saved 20,400 tons of food from spoilage in 2019 alone. The runners up were Energy Partners and Maxwell & Spark.
Contestants have to be implementing pay-per-use cooling/outsourced cooling projects in Asia, Africa, or Latin America and ColdHubs’ 100% solar-powered walk-in cold storage facility became a perfect innovation model to win the prize. The winners were selected by BASE, leaders of the CaaS Initiative, after reviewing the various entries from around the world.
“We selected ColdHubs as the prize winner because of its exemplary Cooling as a Service model offered to smallholder farmers, retailers and wholesalers, to store and preserve fresh fruits, vegetables and other perishable foods 24/7, extending their shelf life from two days to more than 21 days,” explains Dimitris Karamitsos, Senior Business Developer at BASE for the CaaS Initiative.
According to CaaS official website, “ColdHubs’ business model is a simple pay-as-you-store Cooling as a Service model. Farmers and retailers pay 100 Nigerian Naira (equivalent of USD 0.50) to store one 20kg (44lbs) returnable plastic crate per day inside the cold room. Hubs are operated by a female Hub Operator, who monitors the loading and unloading of crates, collects the fees, as well as a Market Attendant who builds relationships in farm clusters and markets. The simplicity of the model, without the requirement to sign any contract, makes this an excellent solution for first-mile cooling.”
ColdHubs is currently serving 3,517 farmers, retailers and wholesalers using its 24 installed cold rooms in 18 farms, aggregation centers and markets within the Southern and Northern Regions of Nigeria. 30 more ColdHubs are presently under construction across Nigeria, bringing the projected total number of Hubs, to 54 by the end of 2020.
In 2019, the 24 operational ColdHubs saved 20,400 tons of food from spoilage, increased the household income of their customers by 50 per cent by eliminating food loss, created 48 new jobs for women, and saved 462 tons of CO2 emissions.
“ColdHubs’ solution is a perfect example of how Cooling as a Service can overcome key barriers to adopt clean cooling technology,” says Thomas Motmans, Sustainable Energy Finance Specialist at BASE. “We want to showcase this success story because here is a large opportunity for its wider application in agricultural supply chains to reduce food waste and increase the quality and value of food for small- and medium-scale producers.”
With this solution, ColdHubs aims to eliminate the impact of food spoilage and lack of small scale post-harvest infrastructure facing 470 million smallholder farmers globally and increase the income of farmers and retailers by eliminating previous losses.
The original “ColdHub” design was for solar-powered cold rooms driven by solar-powered refrigeration units using electrical storage. Now, ColdHubs has developed a second version that uses latent thermal energy storage to reduce the size of the batteries and thereby the cost and environmental impact of the system. The cold rooms operated by ColdHubs use the natural refrigerant propane (R290), which has no Ozone Depletion Potential and a minimal Global Warming Potential.
https://www.caas-initiative.org/news/meet-the-caas-prize-winner/
