Nilus improves food access by connecting producers directly with schools, community kitchens and vulnerable households, cutting costs by up to 70 percent.
Over 2 billion people worldwide are food insecure and lack the resources to access healthy meals. With many stakeholders along the food value chain, from small-scale producers to institutional buyers and individual consumers, it can be difficult to build an efficient supply chain that gets affordable food to those in need.
Nilus aims to eradicate hunger by lowering the cost of healthy food and groceries for low-income people. Together with WFP, Nilus improves food access by connecting producers directly with schools, community kitchens and vulnerable households, cutting costs by up to 70 percent. Nilus's digital marketplace, Mercadito Nilus, also strengthens supply chains by digitally tracing food purchases, streamlining procurement and improving cost efficiency in a digital marketplace platform. WFP uses the platform to track purchases, monitor nutrition and adjust sourcing based on inventory gaps or price fluctuations, ensuring nutritious meals reach those who need them most.
In 2023, Nilus collaborated with the WFP Innovation Accelerator and WFP Peru to launch operations in the country, focusing on solving last-mile supply chain challenges in a pilot that reached 9,000 community members. In 2024, the collaboration expanded to Colombia, serving Venezuelan migrant communities through its marketplace technology.
It also launched in Ecuador, where the Nilus marketplace digitizes school meals catalogs and connects small-scale producers to institutional buyers through WFP's school meals programme. It has helped serve nutritious meals at a low cost to more than 25,000 school children.
Nilus is also the first recipient of a loan from the WFP Innovation BRIDGE, created in collaboration between WFP and UNCDF. Overall, Nilus has helped 650,000 low-income individuals save and average of 22 percent on their food purchases.
