Chowberry was officially incorporated in 2016 by Oscar Ekponimo, inspired by his childhood experience with hunger and first-hand view of its link with food waste.
Chowberry started as an app that reduces food waste and improves food access to families facing hunger by allowing grocers trace and monitor products approaching the end of shelf-life and initiate steep pricing discounts on them as their sell-by dates approach. Partner food relief agencies then procure the discounted food items for their feeding programs in poor communities. The organization has grown to impact hundreds of thousands of lives in Africa beginning with Nigeria, and now has an official presence in the United States, Zambia, Ghana and Trinidad & Tobago.
The app won the Young Innovators Award 2013 by the United Nations agency for ICT – the International Telecoms Union (ITU) and received an initial prize funding for $5,000 which acted as seed funding that jumpstarted Chowberry into what it has become over the years.
Chowberry gained critical acclaim and recognition after Time Magazine featured a piece in the 2017 edition of the Next Generation Leader series. As a social enterprise, we have successfully distributed over 1.6 Million meals across Nigeria in underserved and indigent communities.
We have helped and collaborated with global food brands like Barilla Group and International organizations like the World Bank, European Union, MIT Solve, Mohammed Bin Rasheed Initiative for prosperity amongst others to shape the future of our food systems to be more sustainable and regenerative.
As an organization, our focus is targeted at four key thematic interventions in Food-Tech, Health and Nutrition, Research and Development for the Food System and Food Waste reduction.
Our expertise in food systems innovation, use of technology for development and Social Entrepreneurship has created numerous opportunities for advisory, collaboration and knowledge sharing for global institutions and top food brands which include Barilla Group, Food Tank, Rolex SA, and British Council.