The portable system uses white and ultraviolet imaging to assess individual grain kernels. New funding will support certification, manufacturing and commercial expansion, although independent performance data have not yet been published.
KENYA — Agritech startup Aflabox has secured €1.35 million (US$1.51M) in seed funding to advance the certification, production and commercial rollout of its portable grain-screening system, with Kenya and Nigeria among its priority markets.
The funding was completed through FoodSeed, an agrifood startup programme within CDP Venture Capital’s National Accelerator Network and managed by Eatable Adventures. Farming Future, an Italian agrifood technology-transfer initiative, also participated.
Eatable Adventures said the investment would support product certification, commercial expansion in Kenya, Nigeria and Italy, and the establishment of a small production facility for Aflabox devices.
Screening individual kernels
The Aflabox system combines a camera, a sample drawer and three light sources. Grain is photographed under white light and ultraviolet light at wavelengths of 365 and 385 nanometres.
Models running on the device identify individual kernels, determine the crop and classify visible quality characteristics. The current system supports maize, rice, wheat and sorghum, with grading categories including normal, mouldy, broken, sprouted, pest-damaged and heat-damaged kernels, as well as impurities.
Tests can be performed without an internet connection. Results and images are stored on the device and uploaded to an online dashboard once connectivity becomes available. The dashboard can be used to filter results and view testing locations on a map.
The approach could help grain buyers, collection centres and processors identify suspect consignments before combining them with larger volumes or transporting them to distant laboratories.
This is particularly relevant in markets where testing facilities are concentrated in major towns and laboratory turnaround times mean grain may already have moved through several points in the supply chain before contamination is detected.
A screen, not laboratory confirmation
While earlier reports have described Aflabox as a rapid aflatoxin-detection device, the company’s current technical documentation draws a more careful distinction.
Under ultraviolet light, some maize kernels affected by Aspergillus flavus, a mould capable of producing aflatoxins, can display bright greenish-yellow fluorescence. However, the company acknowledges that this is only a presumptive warning sign. Kernels can fluoresce for other reasons, and laboratory analysis is still required to confirm the presence and concentration of aflatoxins.
Aflabox’s published product specifications currently describe outputs as images and kernel-level quality grades. They do not indicate that the device reports an aflatoxin concentration in parts per billion or produces a regulatory pass-or-fail decision.
That distinction matters because regulatory decisions on contaminated grain are generally based on measured toxin concentrations obtained from representative samples. A screening result could identify grain requiring further investigation, but it should not automatically be treated as confirmation that an entire consignment complies with, or exceeds, a legal limit.
The practical value of the system may therefore lie in rapid triage. It could allow businesses to screen more samples closer to farms and collection centres, isolate potentially problematic grain and prioritise samples for confirmatory laboratory testing.
Early foothold in Kenya
Aflabox presented the technology to Kenyan millers and grain-sector businesses during the Cereal Millers Association Annual Technical Conference and Expo in Nairobi in April 2026.
At the time, grain aggregator Agri Bora said delayed access to testing meant suppliers sometimes learnt that maize contained unacceptable aflatoxin levels only after delivery, leaving them exposed to rejected consignments and financial losses.
Aflabox previously indicated that it had received enquiries and pre-orders from Kenyan businesses following the conference. However, updated sales and delivery figures have not been disclosed.
Eatable Adventures also reported that Aflabox had supplied 20 devices to the World Food Programme in Kenya. TechPalate Insights could not locate a corresponding public notice from WFP detailing where the devices were deployed, how they were being used or the results of any evaluation. The deployment should therefore remain attributed to the investor and company until supporting documentation is available.
Why Kenya and Nigeria
Aflabox’s focus on Kenya and Nigeria is not simply a market-expansion decision. Both are major maize-consuming countries with documented aflatoxin exposure and persistent gaps in routine testing across fragmented grain supply chains.
Kenya experienced one of the world’s most serious recorded aflatoxicosis outbreaks in 2004, when contaminated maize was linked to 317 illnesses and 125 deaths. More recent evidence shows that lower-level exposure remains a concern.
A study published in November 2025 analysed 1,255 maize-flour samples purchased across ten Kenyan urban centres between February and December 2021. Aflatoxins were detected in 97% of the samples, while 16% exceeded Kenya’s regulatory limit of 10 parts per billion. Average concentrations were higher in flour obtained from informal markets than in formally packaged products. The results describe the 2021 market rather than current national prevalence, but they illustrate why wider and more frequent screening remains necessary.
Nigeria faces a similarly complex problem across maize, groundnuts, animal feed and other susceptible commodities. In a study published on 20 August 2026, researchers collected 240 maize samples from markets and storage facilities across four microclimatic zones in Niger State and pooled them into 32 composite samples. Every composite contained aflatoxins, with concentrations ranging from 0.03 to 683 micrograms per kilogram. Some samples contained as many as five mycotoxins.
The study was confined to Niger State and should not be treated as a national prevalence estimate. It nevertheless demonstrates the type of contamination that buyers and processors may encounter before grain reaches a central laboratory. The research was led by scientists from the Africa Centre of Excellence for Mycotoxin and Food Safety at the Federal University of Technology Minna, alongside regional collaborators.
Across the continent, the African Union’s Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa identifies maize, groundnuts and spices among the commodities most affected. Responses have included field biocontrol, improved drying and storage, farmer training, laboratory strengthening and national surveillance. Aflasafe biocontrol products developed by IITA and its partners have, for example, been registered in Kenya, Nigeria and several other African countries.
Screening technologies such as Aflabox would therefore enter an existing chain of controls. They cannot prevent contamination on their own, but could help determine which grain requires segregation, further testing or corrective action.
How aflatoxins are normally detected
Aflatoxin testing starts before a sample reaches an instrument. Codex describes the process in three stages: selecting a representative sample from the lot, preparing and homogenising it, and quantifying the toxin.
Sampling is especially difficult because aflatoxins are rarely distributed evenly. A small number of heavily contaminated kernels can sit among thousands of apparently normal ones. A highly accurate laboratory instrument can therefore still produce an unrepresentative result if the original sample was poorly collected.
Laboratories commonly use high-performance liquid chromatography or liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. These methods can quantify individual aflatoxins at low concentrations and provide confirmatory evidence, but they require specialised instruments, trained analysts, sample preparation, chemical extraction and quality-control systems. Transporting samples to central laboratories also introduces cost and delay.
ELISA and lateral-flow test kits offer faster and less equipment-intensive screening. Many can be used at mills, warehouses and grain-intake points, but they ordinarily still require grain to be ground, mixed and extracted. Their performance can differ between crops and food matrices, while antibody cross-reactivity, temperature and operator technique can affect some assays.
Aflabox takes a different approach. It photographs intact kernels under white and ultraviolet light, allowing its models to examine each visible kernel without grinding the sample placed in the drawer. That could make repeated screening quicker and preserve the sample for retesting.
It does not, however, eliminate the sampling problem. The grain placed inside the device must still represent the much larger consignment from which it was drawn. Its current technical documentation also does not show that the system quantifies aflatoxins in parts per billion. Suspect results would still require confirmation using a validated analytical method.
What established control systems do differently
The broader international practice is not to choose between rapid testing and laboratory analysis. It is to combine them within a defined control system.
In the United States, the Federal Grain Inspection Service evaluates rapid quantitative mycotoxin kits against published performance criteria before approving them for official grain inspection. Reference laboratory methods are retained to evaluate and standardise those kits.
The US Food and Drug Administration also maintains a multi-laboratory-validated LC-MS/MS method for measuring 12 mycotoxins in products including maize, peanut butter and wheat flour.
The European Union specifies how official samples for mycotoxin testing must be collected and analysed under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/2782. Those requirements operate alongside commodity-specific maximum levels and additional controls on certain higher-risk imports.
Evidence will determine commercial credibility
The seed investment moves Aflabox closer to commercial deployment, but several questions remain before users can determine where the system fits within formal food-safety controls.
Neither Aflabox nor its investors have published the device’s validation dataset, sample size, sensitivity, specificity, false-positive and false-negative rates or performance against a recognised laboratory reference method.
The company has also not publicly identified the certification it is pursuing, the organisation responsible for assessing the device or the performance criteria it must meet.
These details will be especially important if millers, exporters or public agencies intend to use screening results when accepting, segregating or rejecting grain.
Aflabox describes itself as a small team with a young product. Its current founders are listed as Luca Alinovi, Fabrizio Cardillo, Elijah Mwangi and Alessio Colussi, combining food-systems, African-market, software and agricultural expertise.