There’s nothing glamorous about rotting tomatoes in the back of a lorry, or a farmer watching an entire harvest go to waste because no one showed up to buy.
But that’s where this story begins.
Dominique had seen it all. Systemic waste, exploitative middlemen, and smallholder farmers constantly on the losing end of a broken chain. He knew the system wasn’t broken by accident. It was designed to work that way for the few, not the many.
Joan saw it too. But not just in the numbers. She lived it.
As a young mother, newly returned from the U.S., she struggled to find consistent, affordable fresh produce for her family. She knew how chaotic the market could be. How hard it was for a working parent to plan healthy meals when prices fluctuated by the hour, or when vendors simply didn’t have stock. That chaos wasn’t just inconvenient it was unacceptable. And yet, it was the norm.
So together, Dominique and Joan decided to do something most people wouldn’t: build a business that tried to fix it.
They called it Taimba.
And no, it didn’t come together in a pitch deck or boardroom. It came together on dusty roads, in early-morning market runs, in tense meetings with farmers, in trial deliveries that went wrong. They didn’t have a roadmap. Just a problem they were obsessed with and a willingness to stay in the fight longer than most would.
What they created was simple but powerful: a platform that connects rural farmers directly to urban vendors. Lower prices for vendors. Better income for farmers. Less waste. Less guesswork.
It’s a lifeline for the farmer who now gets paid fairly and on time for once, not at the mercy of brokers who vanish after harvest. A game-changer for the ‘mama mboga’ who no longer wakes up at 4 a.m. to fight for overpriced, unpredictable produce at the wholesale market. It’s fresh, affordable food for the household that used to spend half its income on inconsistent groceries. Hence, dignity for both the grower and the buyer.
As many business owners would agree, Taimba didn’t take off overnight. They hit walls. Cash flow issues. Logistics that didn’t work. Tech that broke down. People who didn’t believe in them or worse, people who did, but exploited that belief.
But they kept going.
Today, Taimba is more than a supply chain platform. It’s a quiet rebellion against the way things have always been done. It’s Dominique still showing up when most would have walked away. It’s Joan making hard calls that protect the mission, not just the margins. It’s hundreds of vendors and farmers who now move differently because someone took the risk to believe the system could work better.