GOODFIRE LIMITED

Organization

GOODFIRE LIMITED

Mission

To recycle organic waste into clean cooking energy.

Organizational Expertise

Capacity Building, Gender / Womens Empowerment, Heating, Institutional Cooking, Marketing, Technology and Fuel R&D

Technologies & Fuels

Pellets / Briquettes

Clean Cooking Activities

With less than 10% of Ugandans accessing electricity, over 90% use wood and charcoal energy sources. In Kampala alone, annual charcoal demand is 205,000 tonnes. Each tonne of charcoal requires the felling of approximately 88 medium size trees ie over 18 million trees/year. We slow this down by manufacturing cooking briquettes from organic wastes.
Our activities:
1. Collection of wastes: We work with small-trader communities in Kampala to collect then recycle organic waste into cooking energy. We achieve this through a unique waste buy-back model which not only empowers those communities with income, but also cleans up their environs.
2. Sourcing of farm starches: We work with rural farming communities, mostly women, near our factory to source organic starches used in the manufacturing process.
3. Manufacturing: We employ dozens of rural folks around our factory, mostly women, in our manufacturing process. This involves cleaning & sorting raw wastes such as charcoal dust; crushing the wastes into uniform powder; mixing & binding; briquetting & pelleting; drying to standard moisture content; and packaging.
4. Sales & Marketing: We transport and distribute the packed product to pre-ordered end users and re-sellers throughout Kampala city. They contact us directly after learning about the product through our marketing campaigns and product exhibitions.
5. Training: We host various academic and commercial visitors for one day training on briquette manufacturing.

Partnership

1. Marketing and popularization of briquettes/pellets made from recycled waste to replace bush charcoal and firewood from virgin trees. There is currently a behavioral barrier whereby would-be users of briquettes have misconceptions and biases that can be addressed through experiential marketing trials and educational-advertising on social medial and traditional media

2. Develop the downstream supply chain for the raw materials (organic wastes and charcoal dust) from disparate collection points in urban centers. These materials, which would otherwise go to waste, can be redeemed through price support to the informal collectors and through packaging support with purposeful containers distributed regularly to appointed agents and through transportation support to collect and bulk the materials at central truck pick-up points

3. Develop the upstream supply chain in order to improve access to charcoal briquettes by the masses. Unlike bush charcoal from virgin trees, our recycled and manufactured briquettes need extra handling care during distribution and storage. We need to recruit and train various zonal trade parters spread out near homesteads targeted. These trade partners can also be motivated to switch partially from trading bush charcoal to briquettes by direct trade financing support i.e. credit supply. We need support in this.

4. Manufacturing efficiency support. Whereas our company has invested sufficiently in the crushing, mixing, briquetting press and other stages of manufacturing, there is room for improvement in the drying process. Its a bottleneck that slows down our ability to meet delivery targets to customers. We need support on further R&D on more efficient product drying methods and financial support to acquire more automated machinery for this.

Regions Operating In

Sub-Saharan Africa

Country Based In

Uganda

Address

Kasana Zone, Bujjuko Town, Mityana Road

Kampala,

Primary Point of Contact

Name: Mrs. Virginia Ssemakula

Title: Director

Email: vssemakula@hotmail.com

Phone: +256714427494

Secondary Point of Contact

Name: Mr. Robert Ssemakula