Recent funding has strengthened Nile, a South African online trading platform, in its expansion drive. Now active in over fifty countries, including partnerships with Indian digital trading counterparts, Nile aims to facilitate the full array of trading and procurement transactions a farm has to conclude.

What local farmers like about Nile is that they set their own sales price on the platform, resulting in more transparency of their net farm income, they say. The same platform can be leveraged for both local and international shipments. They can, as well, use the income from these channels to offset procurement transactions through Nile’s online marketplace.

Encouraging farmers to develop their own brand
In African retail, Nile packs a private label, called Delta, with apples, grapes, citrus, potatoes, carrots and onions. Mostly, though, they want their supplying farmers to develop their own brands and develop their packing capacity to the max.

“Our model is back-to-back ordering. We prefer not to assume a stockkeeping position. Adding value on the farm always makes for better economics,” says founder and CEO Louis de Kock.

Courgettes (zucchini or baby marrows) in the Delta brand used in African retail

Carrot exports increasing
What also makes for better economics, he says, is to market the whole crop, from lowest to highest grade and even better if a farmer who’d always grown solely for the domestic market, can be assisted to export.

Pre-harvest financing is possible and Nile manages the phytosanitary administration and freight-forwarding on behalf of exporting clients.

In this way, Nile has been able to give a leg-up to niche export items, like carrots. The company works with most of South Africa’s main carrot growers.

“South Africa grows high quality carrots and it’s increasingly an export line to the Middle East and Africa. For now, it’s a niche line, but carrot exports will increase,” he says.

De Kock remarks that a potential buyer of South African fruit and vegetables should consider no other company. Nile works with 400 of South Africa’s leading farmers, he says, facilitating inbound and outbound trade of over a hundred categories, down to specialist vegetables like Indian karela (bitter gourd).

“Many South African exporters can do a containerful of citrus, but our offering is exceptionally varied. We can offer most categories of fruit and vegetables through air freight, road freight and sea freight, or a combination of those. The flexibility of our logistics is a differentiating factor.”

“The future of fresh produce is online” reads the slogan

For more information:
Louis de Kock
Nile
Tel: +27 65 735 7581
Email: [email protected]
https://nile.ag/