About
A commodity exchange that starts at the farm gate
FreeTrader is supply chain management, a marketplace and a formal exchange in one platform — because the problems they solve are the same problems.
Why it exists
A farmer in Banket and a buyer in Harare are not short of intent. They are short of five things, and no partial fix addresses any of them for long:
- 1 Price opacity — producers sell without knowing what their crop is actually worth that week.
- 2 Supply chain fragmentation — no single place aggregates supply, quality, payment and settlement, so each is someone else’s problem.
- 3 Payment delay — 30 to 90-day cash cycles that destroy a smallholder’s working capital.
- 4 Producer exclusion — small-scale producers cannot reach regional or global buyers on their own.
- 5 Trust deficit — nothing independently verifies where a consignment came from or what is in it.
Three domains, one platform
Splitting these apart is what leaves a farmer with a good price and no way to prove what they are selling, or a buyer with a contract and no way to check it was ever weighed.
Supply chain
Farmer onboarding and KYC, produce intake, quality grading, warehouse receipting, cold chain and aggregator management.
Marketplace
Buyer and seller matching, spot and forward contracts, framework agreements, and direct access to institutional buyers.
Exchange trading
A formal order book with price-time priority matching, circuit breakers, settlement and regulatory reporting.
What we handle
Soft commodities first, then hard, then the financial products built on top of them.
| Phase 1 | Soft commodities — soya, white and yellow maize, wheat, sunflower, beef, and horticulture including tomatoes, onions, leafy greens, chillies and herbs. |
|---|---|
| Phase 2 | Hard commodities — gold, copper and Kimberley Process certified diamonds, for the Botswana and Zimbabwe markets. |
| Phase 3 | Digital financial products — mineral-backed securities, commodity ETFs, certified trade bonds and verified carbon credits. |
Where we operate
One codebase, adapted per jurisdiction, with a partner bank and a regulator in each.
| Market | Commodities | Launch |
|---|---|---|
| Zimbabwe | Soya, maize, horticulture, tomatoes | Open now |
| Botswana | Soya, horticulture, beef, sorghum | Phase 1 |
| Malawi | Maize, tobacco, soya, groundnuts | Phase 2 |
| Caribbean (CARICOM) | Fresh produce, spices, tree crops | Phase 3 |
Who we are
FreeTrader Agri-Produce Exchange (Private) Limited, registered in Zimbabwe. The platform is built and operated in the region it serves, and the technical specification it is built to is version 3.0.
Work with us
Producers, buyers, warehouse operators and institutional partners are all welcome.