DownloadHelper Lender Team

Over a billion tons of edible food is wasted each year, which amounts to a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labor, and capital. Needless production of greenhouse gas emissions for food that is wasted contributes to climate change. Meanwhile, more than 2 billion people in the world suffer from food insecurity which leads to malnutrition.

Nilus is a social enterprise operating in Argentina and Mexico that applies crowdsourcing technology and AI to create healthy food markets for low income people. To do so, it taps into the massive amounts of food that are wasted while still in perfectly edible condition. Nilus developed a digital platform that connects food producers with soup kitchens and other institutions that provide food services at affordable rates to low income people.

In the past year Nilus has saved over 1.3 million kilos of food from being wasted and delivered over 6.7 million nutritious, affordable meals. The company has helped 3.1K tons of CO2 emissions be avoided. Nilus sources the food from small farmers, creating another channel of commercialization for produce that only has aesthetic defects. See more in this video.

This loan of $50,000 will help Nilus to acquire bulk purchases of food, pushing down the costs with discounts for larger volumes. This is Nilus’ first loan through the Kiva Social Enterprise program.