Ghanaian food entrepreneur Catherine Krobo Edusei sells control of Eden Tree after 29 years

Catherine Krobo Edusei has sold majority control of Eden Tree, the fresh produce company she founded in Accra in 1997 and built into one of Ghana's best-known food brands.

The buyers are Pangea Africa, an investment and advisory firm focused on West African food systems, and Black Star Africa, a private operational holding company specialising in turnarounds and supply chain work. The transaction value was not disclosed.

Krobo Edusei moves to founder emeritus and takes a seat on the board. Grant Webber, representing Black Star Africa, becomes chief executive. Tracy Boswell Scicchitano, a director at Pangea Africa, joins the board.

"Building Eden Tree over nearly three decades has been the privilege of my life," Krobo Edusei said. "From our humble beginnings, we proved that Ghanaian agribusiness can meet strict international standards of safety, quality, and consistency."

A herb business that became a household name

Krobo Edusei returned to Ghana in 1996 after fourteen years in Britain, where she worked in banking and studied business administration at Camden College. She had told her family she would not go back into formal employment, and settled instead on growing herbs.

She took her first crop to a supermarket in Accra where the manager did not recognise what she was selling. Fresh herbs were available in Ghana only in imported dried form, and vegetables were largely imported and expensive. The gap turned into a business.

Eden Tree expanded from herbs into vegetables, then spices and fruit, buying from smallholders and handling washing, packing and distribution to retail, wholesale and catering customers. It now supplies more than 80 varieties sourced from over 375 outgrower farming families, operating from a processing facility in Tema. The company provides soft loans to farmers to improve production and buy inputs, positioning itself as the intermediary between smallholders and formal retail.

Krobo Edusei has described that role as translating between two worlds. The company understands what supermarkets require, and converts what farmers grow into something the stores will accept.

She has been recognised in Ghana as a leading figure in women's entrepreneurship, receiving a national award from the Chartered Institute of Marketing for contribution to nation-building and agribusiness entrepreneur of the year awards in 2013 and 2015.

A rare exit for an impact fund

The transaction takes out Investisseurs & Partenaires, the French impact investor that has held shares in Eden Tree since 2015 through its IPAE 1 and I&P Expansion funds.

Secondary exits of that kind remain uncommon in West Africa, where development finance institutions and impact funds often struggle to find local buyers when they reach the end of a holding period. The parties have presented the deal as evidence that the Ghanaian financial ecosystem can now structure and complete multi-tiered transactions without an international trade buyer.

"The secondary exit of I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs Fund from Eden Tree represents a healthy, mature investment lifecycle in Ghana," said Francis Owusu of I&P, adding that the company had expanded its processing facilities and professionalised its operations during the partnership.

Plans for cold chain and irrigation

The new owners have set out an operational agenda centred on post-harvest losses, which run as high as 50 percent for fresh fruit and vegetables across parts of West Africa because of fragmented supply chains and inadequate refrigeration.

John Scicchitano, a strategic adviser at Pangea Africa, said the plan involves installing solar-powered cooling units near farms, expanding drip irrigation and organising outgrower cooperatives, with the aim of preserving nutrients between field and retail shelf and lowering the cost of a healthy diet.

Webber said the immediate focus is operational optimisation, combining Black Star's turnaround experience with Pangea's capital to build an integrated West African fresh food business.

Boswell Scicchitano said the incoming shareholders intended to maintain the company's record of female leadership at governance level.