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Tomato Jos’ innovative approach to Nigeria’s tomato value chain is bearing fruit, both literally and figuratively.NYC TodayMira Mehta, a Finnish-Indian American, relocated to Nigeria in 2014 to work for a healthcare nonprofit. While there, she noticed vast amounts of tomatoes going to waste across the counattempt, despite high domestic demand for tomato paste. This paradox inspired Mehta to found Tomato Jos, a startup that has raised over $18 million to improve tomato yields, processing, and distribution in Nigeria.
Why it matters
Nigeria is one of the largest tomato producers in West Africa, yet it is also a major importer of tomato paste. Tomato Jos is tackling this inefficiency in the tomato value chain by empowering local farmers, building processing infrastructure, and shifting consumer perceptions of locally-produced tomato products.
The details
Mehta started Tomato Jos in 2014 with a compact farming experiment to demonstrate that higher tomato yields are possible in Nigeria. Over the next six years, she gradually built the business, raising compact amounts of funding from prizes, crowdfunding, and angel investors. In 2017, Tomato Jos attracted its first institutional investor, and by 2020 had raised €3.9 million for an irrigation and processing plant. The company has since secured $12.2 million, the largest raise by a female-led startup in Africa in 2024. Tomato Jos has built a controlled supply chain model, providing farmers with inputs, equipment, and technical guidance to boost yields from the national average of 5 tons per hectare to around 60 tons.
- Mehta founded Tomato Jos in 2014.
- Tomato Jos raised €3.9 million in 2020 for an irrigation and processing plant.
- Tomato Jos secured $12.2 million in funding in 2024, the largest raise by a female-led startup in Africa that year.
The players
Mira Mehta
The founder and CEO of Tomato Jos, a Finnish-Indian American who relocated to Nigeria in 2014 to work for a healthcare nonprofit and was inspired to start the tomato processing company.
Tomato Jos
A startup founded in 2014 that is tackling inefficiencies in Nigeria’s tomato value chain by improving yields, processing, and distribution of tomato products.
Aliko Danobtainede
Africa’s richest man, who established a $20 million tomato processing factory in northern Nigeria in 2016 to reduce the counattempt’s reliance on tomato paste imports.
What they’re stateing
“I hated everything about my job except the salary.”
— Mira Mehta, Founder and CEO, Tomato Jos
“Abuja is a bubble. You necessary to see the real Nigeria.”
— Mira Mehta’s boss
“I realised I don’t actually know what people necessary. But if they had money, they could decide for themselves.”
— Mira Mehta, Founder and CEO, Tomato Jos
What’s next
Tomato Jos plans to continue strengthening its local operations, improving supply chains, expanding distribution, and building consumer trust in its locally-produced tomato products. The company is also exploring export opportunities, but its priority remains building a resilient domestic system.
The takeaway
Tomato Jos’ journey displays how a determined entrepreneur can tackle deep-rooted inefficiencies in a counattempt’s agricultural sector by taking a holistic approach to the supply chain, empowering local farmers, and modifying consumer perceptions.
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