A farmer in a village with no steady electricity can grow a good crop and still lose much of it before it reaches a buyer. Fruit softens, herbs wilt and vegetables spoil in days. Fatima El Khou, a Moroccan mechanical engineer, is building a company to change that. Her startup, Jafife, makes solar-powered cooling and drying systems that keep harvests fresh and turn surplus crops into products people can store and sell.
El Khou is the founder and CEO of Jafife. Her company was founded in 2023, according to the profile that prompted this post, and we could not confirm the date elsewhere. She holds a state engineering degree in mechanical engineering and automated systems from the National School of Applied Sciences in Fez. In 2020, she worked as an energy studies engineer at Smart Alliance.
Jafife designs its own equipment. The solar dryers turn fruits, vegetables and herbs into long-lasting products while keeping their nutrients, taste and colour. The company says its systems preserve more than 85 percent of nutritional value. That is a company claim, and we found no independent test of it. The systems can run in rural areas that have no grid power, which is where much of the waste happens.
A digital platform sits on top of the hardware. It tracks temperature and humidity in real time, helps manage stock and gives users data to plan ahead. A mobile app guides installation and the drying process, according to the GoGettaz and SEED profiles of the company.
The platform also tackles a second problem: finding buyers. Jafife connects producers with manufacturers and investors, so a farmer or cooperative with a surplus has somewhere to sell it. The idea is to turn crops that would have rotted into higher-value goods. Jafife’s profiles also mention natural dyes made from crops without additives, an extra product line for the same raw material.
El Khou’s work has already won recognition. In September 2024, she took a Grand Prize of $50,000 at the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize, run by Yara and partners, according to Yara’s announcement. She shared it with Dr Iddi Mohammed Faried of Ghana’s Kodu Technology. Twelve finalists from 11 African countries were chosen from about 2,000 applications. That signals that judges found her model credible. But a prize is not the same as paying customers.
Why does this matter? Food loss is one of Africa’s quieter economic problems. FAO and the International Institute of Refrigeration estimate that more than 38 percent of food losses in sub-Saharan Africa occur at production, post-harvest handling and processing. That estimate dates from 2022 and covers sub-Saharan Africa, not Morocco. But the pattern is familiar across the continent. Cooling and drying close to the farm can stop spoilage early. In Nigeria, for example, solar-powered cold rooms run by ColdHubs extended the shelf life of produce from two days to 21 days, according to the same report.
Founders in agritech can take three lessons from Jafife’s approach. First, it pairs hardware with software, so the equipment produces data and not only output. Second, it solves preservation and sales together. A farmer with a dried product still needs a buyer. Third, it works where the grid does not reach, which turns a limitation into the design brief.
What we do not know is just as important. Public profiles do not list Jafife’s customers, revenue, installed systems or funding. Without those figures, it is hard to judge how far the company has scaled. We also found no independent data on how much waste its systems prevent. Those are the questions to ask as it grows.
For now, the story is a clear example of African engineering aimed at a practical problem. If more farmers can keep what they grow, and sell it at a better price, the gains reach households, cooperatives and local food systems.
Sources: the profile of Fatima El Khou provided to Index Prima; GoGettaz profile of Fatima El Khou and Jafife; Yara: GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize 2024 winners announced; VC4A venture profile; SEED profile of JAFIFE by BEKRA Technologie; International Institute of Refrigeration on post-harvest losses in sub-Saharan Africa.
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