Maame Ekua Manful, a Ghanaian entrepreneur and the founder of Fieldswhite Co.Ltd is among 21 finalists in this year's SUN Pitch Competition.

Fieldswhite is a food tech start up dedicated to providing innovative and affordable food solutions across Africa.

The start up's flagship product, Sweetpot Yoghurt, is a, "delicious yoghurt enriched with highly nutritious bio-fortified orange fleshed sweet potatoes.

The competition attracted over 500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 24 countries in Africa and Asia to pitch innovative business ideas to address malnutrition for the second edition of the SUN Pitch Awards.

A press release by the SUN Business Network and copied to Ghana News Agency (GNA), said the COVID-19 pandemic had presented unprecedented challenges to the food system and that the pitch competition, scheduled for July 30, 2020, would highlight the innovation and investment opportunities within the private sector to increase access to nutrition in low and middle income markets.

It said 21 shortlisted finalists were selected through a series of national and virtual competitions and had undertaken comprehensive nutrition and business development training in preparation for the final.

The statement said the selected entrepreneurs would pitch their innovative solutions for improved nutrition to compete for a range of cash and business mentorship prizes in the race to be crowned the 2020 SUN Pitch Competition Champion.

It said this year's Global SUN Pitch Competition had sponsorship from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Cargill and Royal DSM.

The statement said other sponsors were Food Industry Asia (FIA), Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, AGREA and Base of the Pyramid Innovation Center (BoP Inc).

It said The SUN Pitch Competition aimed at showcasing nutrition-related investments from SMEs that could catalyse innovation in local food systems and improve the affordability and accessibility of nutritious and safe foods.

"Achieving the nutrition targets of the Sustainable Development Goals will require more partnerships between businesses, investors, governments and UN agencies," the statement added.

Fatiha Terki, Deputy Director Nutrition, UN World Food Programme and co-convener of the SUN Business Network, said the SUN Pitch Competition 2020 would bring all actors together to support entrepreneurs in emerging markets to transform their food systems.

The statement said the first edition of the SUN Pitch Competition was held at the Nutrition Africa Investor Forum in Kenya in 2018, where Ope Olanrewaju of Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics from Nigeria was crowned the winner.

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