Koolboks solar-powered refrigeration system will curb food wastage – Ayoola

Koolboks is a tech startup which has come to bridge the refrigeration gap in Nigeria with solar-powered refrigeration system.

In this interview with co-founder of Koolboks, Ayoola Dominic, he talks about Nigerian small scale businesses, especially those in frozen food business, how central its product remains to their viability and its relevance to the economy.

Co-founder of Koolboks, Ayoola Dominic

So today in Africa, we have three significant challenges. One, 40per cent of food is wasted in emerging markets; also, we have about five out of every ten patients that die due to vaccine spoilage.

Two, we know that a refrigerator is usually expensive and when you have it, there is no electricity.

Over 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa today lack access to electricity and therefore lack access to refrigeration. And when they even have refrigeration, the cost of effectively owning one is usually an uneasy task. Because after getting a refrigerator, they typically have to get a generator and then you start buying fuel to be able to run your refrigerator.

Thirdly, of course, we are talking of the environment; most of the refrigerants that are being used are dangerous refrigerants. They have been banned elsewhere, and these are 80,000 times more dangerous than carbon, but that is what still exists in African countries.

So what we have done is providing the solution using sun and water which is very cheap. We make it a pay-as-go to make it easy for individuals and shop owners to pay on monthly, weekly or daily basis. You can pay as low as N12,000 weekly or monthly. Our mission is to make cooling affordable and accessible to everyone that needs it and to stimulate small-scale businesses in Nigeria.

What are the other benefits of Koolboks refrigerators to Nigerians?
Koolboks freezers come with four LED bulbs and four charging points which means that whether or not you have public power, generator or not, Koolboks system is one that powers your house with light and you at the same time charge your phones. So it provides light, energy and refrigeration in a single unit. That also means providing your family all these from natural energy source which is not diluted. It is like using the sun and water to power your home which you do not have to pay for. We give you the opportunity to pay for it every month for the next 24 months; so what else do you need? God has giving you the sun and you have water in the well which is natural.

The value that comes with Koolboks is immeasurable for family and for small business owners who can sell all manners of drinks without having to sweat to get a generator and all that. All we are doing is to empower struggling families and others. All they have to do is to approach us with a demand and show evidence that they can pay back and then they have it.

While going through Koolboks products, I read of something like monitoring the temperature of the refrigerator and it’s battery. What can you tell us about this?

For us, we are able to monitor the temperature, monitor the battery voltage on the refrigerators; why are we doing this? We figure out that most of our customers are small business owners who are into frozen food business.

In frozen food business you have to preserve the integrity of your products. You know meats are meant to be kept at a particular temperature and the same thing goes for fishes and others. They shouldn’t go beyond that temperature for you to be able to sell your foods fresh and clean or you poison people generally, so the whole idea is for us to remotely monitor the temperature of the fridge.

It’s just like someone or kidney that requires oxygen at a particular rate and you know what it means when he does not get it. Or what it means when a frozen food dealer or vaccine preserver go off power for four or five hours? They become understandably worried because they could lose a lot in terms of spoilage. That is why we monitor the temperature of the refrigerators and also monitor the battery voltage.

There is no issue of transport; just monitor it and put a phone call and you will be asked to do this or that and it will be fine. That is the main reason we make sure to monitor our freezers. We understand that our customers deal on perishables.

One good thing is that this is easy and can be done on the palm of your hand, with your phone from anywhere in the world. It is possible to do this even in areas where there is no network.

Sometimes we know that vaccines are more expensive that the refrigerator itself. So because of the value we place in it and for our customers satisfaction, it is absolutely necessary to know the temperature of our refrigerators and to also know the voltage of the batteries and we do that to preserve the integrity of the vaccines and other goods. We have some of our refrigerators in remote areas; we have them over water in areas that are not accessible but we still monitor these. We can have this sometimes in area where there is no network because it works with GSM network. We can have a few delays, may be five minutes delay but we have the ability to take data anywhere in the world even where there is no network.

What should be avoided while using Koolboks?
It still has no energy storage. People should be aware that when there is no sun they should not unnecessarily throw open the doors; you should know that even when you open a fridge that is constantly on power, the ice defreezes. When you talk about freezing and cooling, people should be able to define what they actually want. We need to clearly define this because we have different energy demands for different needs.

Can Koolboks be used with public electricity?
Yes it can work with or without public power; you have the ability to switch in-between both. Koolboks has the ability to switch between NEPA and Solar. But our campaign is ‘shame on NEPA’ because we have come to bridge the gap.

What is the market projection/target for Koolboks in Nigeria?
Our market projection in Nigeria this year is 7,000 units; next year we are looking at 15,000 units, which I think is even small, but we are planning gradual saturation of the market in Nigeria.

What sector of the economy needs Koolboks most because you talked of vaccines? Can we say it is mostly needed in health facilities?
Hospitals and labs can’t pay our bills alone; how many hospitals and labs do we have? The truth is that Koolboks is for every home and particularly those small business owners that require constant energy for their products and services. If the frozen food business owners are not careful, they can throw away their goods because of lack of power and that is the major problem we want to solve. These are the ones we majorly target. Why go for electricity when the sun is free?

What plans are there to penetrate other African countries?
We are currently in eighteen countries and out of the eighteen countries, sixteen of them are in Africa.

We are targeting offices in Mozambique and Congo in the next two years. We are building our assembly plant in Nigeria already and it is very big. We started building from the scratch.