Hey, Hannatu here 👋
Last week, we asked why Kenya imports fish despite being surrounded by water.
This week, we’re asking a different question: what if Africa isn’t thinking big enough about its ocean?
While frozen tilapia arrives from China, sushi-grade tuna is quietly leaving Kenya’s coast for Miami, New York, and Los Angeles.
The problem isn’t fish. It’s market access.
By 4 AM every day, fishermen leave Kenya's coast in Lamu, Mombasa, and Malindi.
The Kenyan Coast in Lamu. Image Source: Ag Safari/Timi Odueso
Their nets are filled with humphead red snapper, sailfish, octopus, and lobster.
But their catch isn't for local markets.
It's packed in ice within hours, then flown to Miami, New York, or Los Angeles.
It's high-quality, sushi-grade seafood sold at premium prices that are transforming coastal communities.
But this success story is an exception, not the rule. Across Africa's 30,000 kilometers of coastline, a big opportunity remains untapped.
The untapped ocean economy
The global seafood market is worth about $390 billion.
But Africa, with 30,000 kilometers of coastline, contributes almost nothing to the global market.
And it’s not for lack of fish.
Africa accounts for 7% of global aquatic production.
Kenya sits along the Indian Ocean, waters teeming with premium species that fetch top dollar internationally: yellowfin tuna, bigeye tuna, humphead red snapper, sailfish, octopus, and even lobster.
A Kenyan fisherman holding up an octopus he’s caught.
The problem? Fishermen have the fish but lack market access and cold storage infrastructure.
With no export logistics, the fish spoils before reaching premium markets, so they sell locally for pennies.
"Sub-Saharan fish has an unfortunately large stigma around it," explains Will Gertler, who co-founded Kumbatia Seafood in 2022.
According to Gertler, fish from sub-Saharan Africa are met with distrust due to three reasons:
Systemic failures around the cold chain.
Lack of verified traceability and sustainability.
Lack of quality assurance in the value chain.
This stigma keeps Africa locked out of premium markets.
Fish that could command top dollar internationally sell for pocket change at local beaches.
A kilogram of lobster that sells for ~$50 in local Kenyan markets fetches twice that amount internationally.
The gap between what fishermen earn and what they could earn is massive.
And that's exactly what Kumbatia Seafood set out to fix.
Building the cold chain from scratch
Gertler co-founded Kumbatia Seafood in 2022 with Bernard Iha Thoya to address this broken system.
Gertler (second from the right) and his co-founder Bernard Iha (far right). Image Source: Bernard Iha.
Their mission was simple: connect artisanal fishers to premium global markets by solving the infrastructure problem.
Kumbatia operates as a one-stop shop.
They finance fisher inputs and assets.
Provide extensive training on quality handling.
Manage off-grid cold chain logistics.
Process in EU and FDA-certified facilities.
Export directly to international buyers.
The company sources exclusively traceable, sustainable, premium-grade seafood that command premium prices worldwide.
Their first challenge was infrastructure.
The equipment for an EU and FDA-certified processing facility costs millions.
And cold storage in remote islands seemed impossible, so they found a different solution: the mothership model.
Instead of building ice plants or setting up permanent cold storage facilities, they use transport vessels.
These are boats about 14 meters long, each holding ice.
These boats are filled with ice, coolers, bait, and fuel, then docked right next to existing ice plants before sailing to remote fishing communities.
Different categories of fish from Kumbatia seafood sitting on ice
This brings a floating agro-vet and cold storage facility directly to fishermen who would otherwise have no access to such infrastructure.
For processing, they partnered with an EU and FDA-certified facility. This allows them to process fish to international standards without building their own infrastructure.
Kenya's biggest catch isn't staying local anymore
Getting to this point required more than just infrastructure. It required trust.
Kumbatia trains fishermen multiple times yearly on three main criteria: quality assurance, proper handling techniques, and sustainable fishing practices.
At first, the fishermen didn't trust them.
It wasn't the first time an organization had come promising to buy their catch.
Unfortunately, most previous buyers left after two or three purchases and never returned.
This left fishermen skeptical of any new entrants.
Kumbatia earned trust through consistency.
They showed up week after week, month after month. They paid fair prices on time. They rejected low-quality fish but explained why and trained fishermen on how to meet standards.
"We've done lots of rejection when it comes to picking fish from fishermen," Iha admits.
"Most of them expect us to pick whichever fish they bring. And rejecting some bad fish has made them increase the quality."
The proof is in the income transformation.
Fishermen's incomes have increased as high as 400%.
These are mostly young men who Kumbatia says now earn $100–$140 per week during peak season; they earned $20–$35 selling locally before Kumbatia.
Image source: Kumbatia
"We believe we can move a lot of fishers from below the international poverty line to rural middle income," Gertler says.
The demand is visible across multiple markets.
In Nairobi, upscale restaurants like Talisman and Lord Erroll are now serving locally-sourced, internationally-certified seafood.
Hotels along the coast are buying directly from Kumbatia for their high-end restaurants.
The domestic premium market alone is growing as Kenyans increasingly seek quality, traceable seafood.
The transformation extends beyond income.
For indigenous coastal tribes, fishing is more than economics.
It’s a cultural identity passed down through generations.
But in the age of massive globalization and industrialized fishing, maintaining that identity has become increasingly difficult.
"You're being priced out of international markets, and your method of catch becomes commercially unviable," Gertler explains.
Big industrial boats sell more fish than local fishermen, even though the local catch is often higher quality and more sustainably harvested for the ocean. For example, Kumbatia doesn’t harvest endangered fish species.
Young men who might have left fishing for cities now see viable futures on the water. The economic viability ensures the cultural identity survives.
Kumbatia exports almost weekly to the United States. Their products go to New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.
They've also sent products to Rwanda and to the UK. Very soon, they’ll be in China and Eastern markets like Saudi Arabia.
While they mainly source from Kenya, they have tried Zanzibar and Somalia.
Their long-term vision is to be a pan-African company. Operating across the Western Indian and West African Atlantic Oceans.
Different processed seafood from Kumbatia. Image source: Kumbatia.
Africa has 30,000 kilometers of coastline.
It’s dramatically underutilized for exporting seafood. Similar models are emerging in Tanzania and Mozambique.
If scaled properly, the ocean economy could rival agriculture in job creation.
"We're trying to fix a broken food system," Gertler says. It's about more than premium fish or export markets.”
“It's about ensuring fishermen can continue fishing and fisheries can regenerate themselves.”
For artisanal fishers in remote Kenyan islands, this is transformative. Their yellowfin tuna swims in global markets, which will be worth $700 billion in 10 years.
The big question now is whether Africa's 30,000 kilometers can follow suit?
Cheers,
