MCFA signs agreement with Bidhaa Sasa in Kenya to scale up access to electric cooking

A new project has been signed with Bidhaa Sasa, a Kenyan company providing access to affordable, electric cooking in rural areas.

The second agreement under MCFA’s second funding round has been signed with Bidhaa Sasa Limited in Kenya. The company has been operating in the country since 2015 and, through its women-to-women sales model, is providing affordable electric cooking and other climate-smart technologies in rural Kenya and Uganda.

Bidhaa Sasa sells electric pressure cookers, and the company currently employs 80 people in Kenya. Bidhaa Sasa has already served 200,000 customers in Kenya, including by providing over 100,000 clean cooking appliances in the form of efficient biomass stoves and LPG and electric pressure cookers.

“Support from MCFA will enable us to scale our distribution network, consumer financing and after-sales services – enabling us to help more rural households transition from biomass to electric cooking. As the cleanest and healthiest cooking method available today, electric cooking presents a significant opportunity in Kenya, where high electrification rates and renewable energy penetration provide a strong foundation for nationwide adoption. Carbon finance plays a pivotal role by making these appliances more affordable and creating a sustainable pathway to scale,” says Rocio Perez Ochoa, CEO and Co-Founder of Bidhaa Sasa.

With the EUR 2.3 million in MCFA funding, Bidhaa Sasa will scale up sales of electric pressure cookers targeting up to 100,000 primarily female customers in rural areas of Western and Central Kenya. With MCFA’s support, the aim is to establish up to 110,000 clean cooking services and expand its product offering to include electric induction cookers, which will provide access to clean cooking to over 400,000 people in Kenya by the end of project implementation in 2029.

Bidhaa Sasa employs a unique community-based model that integrates financing and distribution to ensure both affordability and accessibility. Inspired by the Tupperware referral model and micro-finance, their sales strategy revolves around ‘Group Leaders’, who are predominantly women and central to their community-based approach. These Group Leaders are early-adopter clients who utilise their social networks to form and manage groups of clients, subsequently overseeing their payments to Bidhaa Sasa. This model is more women friendly compared to traditional sales agent models, as it does not require commitment to specific sales targets or travel to unfamiliar communities. Bidhaa Sasa will offer its electric pressure cookers and induction stoves with flexible repayment terms, allowing for convenient repayments through mobile money, a service used by virtually all Kenyans, even in rural areas.

“We are very proud to include Bidhaa Sasa in the MCFA portfolio, a company which deploys an innovative and proven business model centred around the needs of women as customers and agents of change. Bidhaa Sasa’s model, based on home delivery and flexible payment plans, helps overcome persistent barriers related to access and affordability. It is also a great example of how the private sector can support market change while being firmly rooted in the communities it serves,” comments Heli Sinkko, Fund Manager for MCFA at Nefco.

The MCFA-supported activities will be implemented with Groupe SEB, a renowned manufacturer of Tefal brand small electrical appliances. In 2021, Bidhaa Sasa and Groupe SEB initiated a collaboration to design an electric pressure cooker specifically for the East African market that is robust, affordable and easy to use. After two years of development, the product became commercially available in early 2023, with Bidhaa Sasa as its anchor customer.

Bidhaa Sasa was shortlisted under the second funding round (MCFA2) of the Kenyan country programme. The selection process included third-party evaluations of the final applications by independent experts and a detailed due diligence process carried out by Danish Energy Management in consortium with LFS Advisory.

For further information, please contact:

Heli Sinkko, MCFA Fund Manager and Programme Manager at Nefco
heli.sinkko@nefco.int, +358 10 6180 659

Rocio Perez-Ochoa, CEO at Bidhaa Sasa
press@bidhaa.co.ke, +44 772 911 5188

About Bidhaa Sasa

Bidhaa Sasa is a climate-tech company focused on distributing, financing and servicing electric cooking appliances for low-income families in Kenya and Uganda. By enabling a shift from biomass to grid electricity – now largely renewable – Bidhaa Sasa helps rural households adopt cleaner, more efficient technologies like Electric Pressure Cookers. The company integrates carbon finance into its business model, using verifiable emissions reductions to make these appliances more affordable and accessible for the communities that need them most. Read more at bidhaa.co.ke