AI & AUTOMATION
“ We want Releaf to help Nigeria to become the breadbasket of the world with processed products ”
UZOMA AYOGU CTO , RELEAF
Tech-enabled solutions and smart food factories Releaf utilises various tech-enabled solutions in its work . One of these is Kraken – which is not related to the sea monster , but rather to the verb ‘ cracking ’.
There are four million palm oil smallholder farmers whose work is set back by slow processing systems .
“ Kraken is our first hardware product ,” says Ayogu . “ Oil palm is are our first value chain . Today , smallholder farmers in the oil palm value chain are cracking palm nuts in a very manual way . Literally , some people still use rocks , so we ' ve developed a de-sheller that ' s 200x more productive . It can ensure about 8 % better quality for the end product .”
Oil from palm nuts is used in cooking , biofuel and even beauty products . With Kraken , Releaf is essentially developing a factory that it can place in the best position for these farming clusters to take on the role most efficiently . But that ' s only one part of Releaf ’ s business . Ayogu wants to be able to develop the right technology for this decentralised layer of food production . But , says Ayogu , while it ' s one thing to develop the right technology , it ’ s just as important to know where to put it – this is where geospatial technology comes in . Releaf is currently working on a new software solution that uses geospatial data and machine learning models to find out where the most oil palm trees are located and what the expected yield is going to be . What ' s different about Releaf versus other geospatial companies is that , because it is already operating in the value chain , it can have strong bottoms-up data and is able to make its models far more efficient and reliable – which can also be achieved through building a strong relationship with farmers .
“ Our mission is to industrialise food processing , yes , but with a farmer-centric mindset ,” says Ayogu . “ So , if your farmers are very happy , you ' re able to minimise these expenses . We can grow our market share quickly while also developing this community .” manufacturingdigital . com 83