The story
“KECTIL taught me that leadership is not a title you're given — it's something you practise in the communities you belong to. That's the principle AkoFresh is built on.”
Mathias Charles Yabe, Founder & CEO
AkoFresh is a youth-led agritech social enterprise based in Kumasi, Ghana, tackling one of the most overlooked crises in African food systems: post-harvest loss. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, up to 40% of harvested fruits and vegetables spoil before reaching a market — not because of drought or disease, but because cold storage has never reached rural farming communities. AkoFresh brings the cold chain to the farm gate. We deploy solar-powered cold storage hubs directly inside farming communities, extending the shelf life of tomatoes, peppers, and leafy vegetables from three days to up to 21 days. Alongside them, our solar-powered refrigerated tricycles collect produce directly from farms and move it to storage and market without breaking the cold chain.
Founded: 2021
Based: Kumasi, Ghana and expansion underway in Uganda
Website: www.akofresh.com
Impact to Date
- 10,000+ lives impacted across farming communities in Ghana
- 2,500+ farmers trained in post-harvest handling and climate-smart agriculture
- 950 tonnes of food saved from spoilage
- 400 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions avoided
- 50 green jobs created for women and young people
- 30% income increase and 30% reduction in post-harvest losses among participating farmers
Awards and Recognition
- OPEC Fund Youth Entrepreneurship Award 2026 — inaugural winner, USD 100,000, presented in Vienna
- UNIDO Global FoodTech Award 2024 — presented by the UNIDO Director-General
- World Economic Forum Top Innovator
- Prototypes for Humanity Award, Dubai — presented by HH Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum
- Young Global Changers Recoupling Award — Global Solutions Summit, Berlin
Featured by: BBC News, Euronews, World Economic Forum
Founder
Mathias Charles Yabe — Founder & CEO
Mathias grew up in a farming community in Ghana's Ashanti Region. In 2021, during a volunteer visit to a tomato-farming community, a woman farmer walked him around her farm pointing at baskets of rotten tomatoes and describing everything she had done to grow them. That afternoon became AkoFresh.
He is currently an Executive MBA candidate at Hult International Business School, an Acumen Green Rise Africa Fellow, and a Youth Sounding Board member for EU–Ghana cooperation. He serves on the KECTIL Global Board, supporting regional coordination and community projects, and hosted the KECTIL Regional Youth Leadership Conference in Accra.