Zee Afrika
A dual-purpose e-commerce and B2B marketplace hosting locally manufactured agri-products, functional foods, and professional food processing machinery.
Project Overview
Zee Afrika operates as the commercial launchpad for Pneuma Food Scientifics (PFS). The digital platform functions simultaneously as a direct-to-consumer e-commerce storefront for healthy African food brands (including PFS's own products) and a business-to-business (B2B) marketplace where food processors can buy industrial machinery. Backed by Django and Paystack, it connects local producers with retail shoppers and institutional buyers alike.
Industry
Agribusiness E-Commerce & B2B Marketplace
Duration
Ongoing
Location
Accra, Ghana
The Problem
Ms. Zeenatu’s startups and incubated businesses had brilliant, FDA-approved products, but they lacked a centralized retail channel to reach health-conscious consumers. At the same time, growing food processors in Ghana struggled to find a trusted local source for professional production equipment. The challenge was building a single platform that could handle small retail orders for products like porridge mix while simultaneously managing large-scale B2B transactions for industrial machinery without confusing the user.
The Solution
We engineered a clean, dual-mode e-commerce marketplace powered by Django. The front-end interface splits the user experience naturally into product shopping and machinery procurement. To make transactions seamless across Ghana, we integrated the Paystack API, allowing retail shoppers to buy instant foods using Mobile Money (MTN, Telecel, AT Money) while allowing business owners to pay for heavy machinery securely using Visa or Mastercard.
The Results
The platform created a direct pipeline to market for dozens of local agribusinesses, successfully hosting PFS’s standalone brands alongside products from its training hub. By blending standard e-commerce features with B2B machinery listings, the platform has become a vital commercial hub for Ghana's food sector, allowing buyers of all scales to check out smoothly using local payment methods.
Engineered With
About the Client
Ms. Zeenatu Suglo Adams is an award-winning food scientist, lecturer, and the founder of Pneuma Food Scientifics. After building an infrastructure to help entrepreneurs formulate products and pass regulatory checks, she created Zee Afrika as the final piece of the puzzle: a digital marketplace that gives these newly launched African brands immediate visibility and sales traction in both retail and commercial spaces.
"The platform beautifully balances product education with smooth e-commerce utility. Our community loves knowing the story behind their food, and checking out is effortless."
Ms. Zeenatu Suglo Adams
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
The Core Challenges
The core challenge was balancing the platform's dual identity. Merging a fast-paced retail e-commerce store with a high-ticket B2B machinery marketplace required careful layout planning so that standard shoppers and corporate buyers wouldn't feel out of place.
On the technical side, setting up secure checkout workflows that could handle both small-scale mobile money micropayments for food items and larger card transactions for commercial equipment required deep customization within our payment gateway logic.
Our Strategic Process
We spent significant time modeling the user journey, creating distinct visual funnels for "Consumer Goods" and "Industrial Equipment" right from the homepage. This clear division kept the browsing experience intuitive for both customer types.
We then built out the transaction layer by connecting the Django backend to the Paystack API, rigorously testing payment webhooks across MTN, Telecel, and AT Money to guarantee that order confirmations and payment receipts were generated instantly and reliably.
Key Shipped Features
Dual-Funnel Marketplace Design: A tailored layout that separates everyday food and cosmetic products from heavy machinery listings, providing appropriate pricing structures and inquiry paths for each group.
Integrated Paystack Checkout: A localized payment experience supporting all major Ghanaian Mobile Money networks (MTN, Telecel, AT Money) alongside traditional Visa and Mastercard payments.
Fluid Mobile Responsiveness: A clean, responsive interface that ensures small-scale farmers and urban shoppers get a fast, mobile-optimized experience whether they are ordering stock from a field or a desktop.
Django Admin Order Management: A centralized backend interface where the Zee Greens team can track sales metrics, monitor partner vendor inventory levels, and update machinery availability seamlessly.
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