Secai Marche, an agritech company focusing on farm-direct e-commerce in Southeast Asia, has been selected for a US$4 million grant programme from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
The funding comes under METI’s FY2023 Supplementary “Global South Future-Oriented Co-Creation Program Grant”.
Based in Tokyo with global bases in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore, Secai Marche is building a fresh food supply chain across the region. The grant is aimed at accelerating the development of next-generation fresh food infrastructure in Malaysia and Singapore, including expanding a new cold-chain facility in Selangor, Malaysia.
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Since 2020, Secai Marche has been conducting demonstration projects in Malaysia to tackle inefficiencies within the fresh food supply chain. This has led to the establishment of a network comprising 450 producers and 1,700 HORECA (Hotel, Restaurant, Cafe) clients in Malaysia and achieved over 90 per cent share within the high-end segment.
The company reports that feedback from customers and collaboration with local government agencies have highlighted a clear and growing demand for its services.
The METI grant will enable Secai Marche to broaden its reach beyond its current high-end clientele to encompass the wider mid-volume HORECA segment, which constitutes 70 per cent of Malaysia’s HORECA market.
While quality is the paramount concern for high-end users, mid-volume clients prioritise cost-efficiency and short lead times, specific needs identified during previous pilot programmes.
To address these requirements, the agritech firm plans to implement AI technologies. These will include demand forecasting, automated picking, and delivery routing, designed to streamline fulfilment operations further, reduce costs, and significantly quicken order-to-delivery speeds.
The initiative enables Japanese companies to use Secai Marche’s proprietary digital platform, which manages the entire fresh food e-commerce fulfilment process—from ordering, packaging, and shipping to delivery, inventory management, payments, and returns—as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. This offers considerable potential to increase export revenue for Japanese suppliers.
Furthermore, the insights and data gathered through this project could be fed back into Japan’s domestic supply chain, creating a ‘reverse innovation’ model to benefit small and medium-sized producers facing comparable structural challenges at home.
The project aligns with Malaysia’s national policies, specifically the 12th Malaysia Plan, led by the Prime Minister’s Office. This plan emphasises transforming the logistics ecosystem through digital adoption and centralised planning. Secai Marche’s efforts directly support these aims by introducing high-quality, digitalised logistics services and contributing to the national agenda for economic modernisation and governance improvement.
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