How one start-up is helping more Kenyans access safe, fresh milk
In the pilot programme’s first year, FRESH Networks has helped low-income communities living in urban Kenya access fresh milk via an Internet-of-Things-enabled distribution system. The solution demonstrates how easy-to-use technology can have wide-ranging positive impacts on local communities.
By: Jackie Negro, Nourdine Khalifeh and Bethany Plant
On a sunny afternoon in Hunter’s, Nairobi, Kenya, Milka Wanjini Mungai visits to her local community store to do her routine shopping. During her shop, she makes sure to never miss one of the main essentials for herself and her family — milk — despite the cost.
“Even if I have five shillings, I normally get milk. If I have hardly any shillings, I will still get milk.” -Milka Wanjini Mungai, FRESH Networks customer
In the past, Milka bought her milk in buckets from the street. This milk is often unpasteurized, which can potentially contain a variety of disease-causing pathogens, putting Milka and her family’s health at risk. If she chooses to buy regulated, packaged milk in a store instead of the unpasteurized milk from the street, she has limited control over the amount of milk she can purchase. As a result, she may overspend or buy more than her family can drink before it expires.
Recently, however, her method of buying milk has changed. After 12 years of living in Hunter’s, she now goes to her local store’s FRESH Networks milk dispenser whenever she needs milk.
Bringing her reusable bottle to the machine, which looks similar to an ATM or vending machine, she simply selects the amount of milk she needs on the touchscreen.
Stepping on the pedal, fresh, cold milk comes streaming out — in the exact quantity that she ordered. With her bottle of milk in hand, she can go about her day to work, to town, to church or to school to pick up her children, confident that she has a fresh and safe option for her needs that will not expire before she returns home.
When she comes home, Milka does not drink the milk alone; she has multiple children and grandchildren who depend on her.
Since switching to FRESH Networks’ milk, Milka has noted that her family has fewer stomach aches and illnesses. She feels her household is healthier.
“FRESH milk is clean, healthy and the price is good. I have children and grandchildren. In the past, when I went to buy milk for my children, their stomachs would dilate, they would vomit or they would cry because of their stomachs. The milk was unclean. When it comes to FRESH milk, I do not go to the hospital as often.” - Milka Wanjini Mungai
FRESH Networks: Improving access to fresh milk
FRESH Networks aims to make the task of buying milk simple and accessible for everyone by implementing the distribution machines that Milka uses at her local store.
FRESH Networks’ pilot in Milka’s local shop in Nairobi, Kenya, as well as other machines throughout the city, has been helped enabled through its participation in the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa sprint programme.
The programme was launched by the Austrian Federal Chancellery and the Kofi Annan Foundation and operationally supported by the Austrian Development Agency and the WFP Innovation Accelerator, and it supports entrepreneurs who innovate for the public good, focusing on digital solutions that enhance progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
FRESH Networks was officially awarded the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa in September 2024, alongside ventures Amini and ChipChip.
It is one of the hundreds of small businesses the WFP Innovation Accelerator has supported alongside partners to develop innovative businesses, find product-market fits and test pilot programmes and bring them to scale.
The initial support includes grant funding, mentorship and networking opportunities with global partners and collaborators and hands-on coaching from the WFP Innovation Accelerator. This helps such small businesses to prepare for scale and greater impact. The pilot stage, where FRESH Networks is currently testing its solution, is a critical step in the innovation process to understand the potential for the solution’s success at scale.
For FRESH Networks, we have been supporting the team’s monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) framework and its partnerships strategy to reach financial sustainability, a milestone for many impact-based small businesses.
As part of this support, the WFP Innovation Accelerator worked with the team in Nairobi to validate the pilot’s progress and facilitate a focus group and user surveys for the FRESH Network’s team to gain learnings for its business plans.
This is where we met Milka, her community and David Wainaina Mwariama, Milka’s local shop owner and another important piece of the FRESH Networks puzzle.
Innovation at work: The FRESH Networks model
FRESH Networks’ business model aims to leverage digital technology across the entire dairy supply chain to ultimately deliver fresh milk to consumers safely, transparently and efficiently.
They collaborate with local micro-retailers, like David, who has been running his store in Hunter’s for two decades. At David’s shop, FRESH Networks introduced an automated milk distribution machine, which is connected to other machines in the network through the Internet of Things.
FRESH Networks sources pasteurized milk from reliable dairy companies, which is delivered to dispensers safely through a monitored closed cold chain. Once in the machine, the milk is kept cold through power backup and an Internet of Things monitoring system, keeping it fresh longer and safe to consume. Each of the dispensers is inspected upon installation and licensed by the Kenya Dairy Board.
All transactions within the FRESH Networks supply chain, from buying the milk from dairy producers to paying shop owners like David their commission, to community members like Milka buying the milk itself, are conducted digitally. This ensures that transactions are traceable, accurate and fast.
Thanks to its smart system, urban Kenyans can go to their local store and buy safe milk, in custom quantities, at up to 40 percent less compared to competing packaged milk brands. Since many in the community have irregular income or do not have a fridge at home, buying smaller amounts of milk daily, or even multiple times a day, means they do not waste milk, can manage their household budget and always have the option of delicious, cold milk.
Since installing the FRESH Networks machine, David has seen the queues for his shop grow as community members line up to buy milk. The increase in demand is a new opportunity for income and the maintenance of his business.
Working with FRESH Networks, David learned how to operate the machine and the digital interface for tracking inventory, payment and logistics data.
He greatly enjoys seeing his milk revenues grow on the cloud-based system and is proud to have these digital skills.
“It is bringing us to another level of digital; we are using smart phones to buy. The children appreciate the digital, and even older people and myself appreciate it, too.”
- David Wainaina Mwariama, FRESH Networks vendor
Because of the FRESH Networks system, dairy companies have greater access to micro-retailers like David, optimizing their reach and economic opportunities. All inventory, payment and logistics data are tracked in a cloud system, so that producers and retailers alike can monitor the availability and affordability of their products in real-time.
Generally, drinking pasteurized milk instead of unpasteurized milk reduces the risk of pathogen-based diseases. In the long-term, a large-scale transition to pasteurized milk could result in less frequent visits to the hospital for treatment and reduced stress on Kenya’s medical system, which could save money and enable the government to divert resources to other needs.
This is how innovations like FRESH Networks become so much more than a simple shopping trip to buy milk. Because of FRESH Networks, not only are Milka and her family healthier, but David has the opportunity to earn more income and is learning essential digital skills. Dairy producers benefit from expanded markets and, over time, there could be more positive results for the broader Kenyan economy and health system. Across the entire supply chain, FRESH Networks’ innovative solution is making a positive impact.
Turning a pilot into sustainable impact: FRESH Network’s Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa journey
FRESH Networks has sold milk to 200 customers during its pilot in Kenya, which was designed to test the product on a small scale to collect feedback and gauge potential for sustainable business. Cumulatively, FRESH Networks pilots have successfully dispensed over 140,000 liters of milk to 2,000 households in Kenya, Rwanda and India.
The Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa will continue supporting FRESH Networks in through the autumn of 2025. Currently, FRESH Networks is taking its learnings from the focus group and workshop to build a plan to scale up. In particular, they are looking to develop and test their Business to Business (B2B) model to establish financial sustainability. They also intend to install 25 machines by the end of their sprint. The WFP Innovation Accelerator will work closely with the FRESH Networks team to support the sustainable scaling of the venture beyond their sprint and pilot phase.
With its notable progress and impact on the lives of Milka and David in just a year’s time, we look forward to FRESH Network’s scaling journey and the future of its digital solution.
“It was inspiring to see that, in less than a year of piloting, customers were already feeling a connection to FRESH Networks and the milk they were receiving from the machines. It shows great potential for the innovation’s long-term success that initial users are expressing positive sentiments about it.”
-Nourdine Khalifeh, WFP Innovation Accelerator innovation consultant, FRESH Networks sprint coach
Learn more about FRESH Networks and the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa.
Thanks to the Austrian Federal Chancellery, the Kofi Annan Foundation and the Austrian Development Agency for supporting the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa.
To follow FRESH Network’s full journey with the WFP Innovation Accelerator, read further about the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa’s applicants, finalists, bootcamp and watch the award and pitch event.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies, and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support, and WFP’s global operations.
Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org.
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WFP does not endorse any product or service. The WFP Innovation Accelerator provides grant funding and venture support via its sprint programme to ventures and innovations based on its scaling and impact potential, innovativeness, business model and other factors.
Although FRESH Networks is part of the Kofi Annan Award for Innovation in Africa sprint programme, they operate separately from WFP and their products are not part of WFP’s operational programming.
