© Pierre Depont/CCN: Farmers loading cabbage into the solar powered Cold Room
In March 2025, the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), in collaboration with the Clean Cooling Network (CCN), the Lari Horticultural Farmers’ Cooperative Society Limited (LHFCSL), and key stakeholders, launched Kenya’s and Africa’s first “Try Before You Buy” (TBYB) sustainable cooling and cold-chain unit in Kinale, Lari Sub-County, Kiambu County. This is part of the Specialized Outreach and Knowledge Establishment SPOKE programme.
The TBYB is the second phase of the SPOKE community engagement programme developed by the Clean Cooling Network (CCN) and Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain (ACES). In Phase 1, during 2024, the ACTS SPOKE team had provided the support, mentoring and training to help the community leaders and the wider community to establish a grassroot, community cold-chain ecosystem. The support was guided by an in-depth needs assessment to evaluate present and future cooling requirements of the community that would inform a business case for investment in cold-chain. In Phase 2, through the Try Before You Buy concept, a package of basic cold-chain equipment (static and transport) has been installed for the coming harvest, during which the community can test out their business model in real conditions with ongoing support and mentoring during this period.
With its deep community engagement, the overall programme is a transformative approach designed to demonstrate the value of sustainable cooling and cold-chain solutions to smallholders and other actors along the value chain. Over the whole interaction period, this intervention provides the evidence base of the value of cold-chain investment that will then make a business case for investment. Crucially, TBYB is not a standalone technical intervention. It is a risk-mitigating, evidence-producing trial to test the cooperative’s business model in live market conditions that comes after a long engagement and preparation phase. From the beginning, the community receives continued support and training. This enables them to refine their price strategies, market access, logistics and demonstrate how the cold-chain business benefits their farmer members during the following TBYB phase. It ultimately positions the cooperative to rally for investment into their very own tailored permanent Community Cooling Hub (CCH).
The smallholder farmers in Lari are thrilled about the opportunity to unlock new markets that will pay them fairer prices for their hard work of tilling the land. In addition, through the TBYB approach, farmers get a bundle of tailored services and support including post-harvest management training, market links and support for their business development to enable them to maximise the value from their produce.
To date, 163 smallholders have registered to join the cooperative and more are joining as they can see the tangible benefit. A main reason to join has been the outlook of aggregating their produce through the cold-chain and collectively marketing their top-quality produce to higher end markets. The farmers are already reaping the benefits of the cold-chain: on average they fetch over 50% better prices for their produce than previously. As they operate through a cooperative model, the farmers must always receive 80% of the price their products achieve on the market - while 20% remain within the cooperative as revenue to ensure sustainable business operations.
The experimental nature of the TBYB approach means the Lari farmers are learning valuable lessons on collective action, market dynamics and the importance of structuring their business to continually meet the demands of the market - as well as seeing the impacts it can bring. This also comes before having to make big capital investments as a cooperative. Farmers in Kinale are pioneering the way to actualising the vision to close the access gap to cold-chain as critical infrastructure.