“Our cooperatives are efficient and now the government is using them to sell fertilisers and seeds also buy produce under the minimum support price (MSP) scheme. We get service fees for these activities and these are extra income for our cooperative members. We see a lot of traction now and people from different states are working with us to start cooperatives in their region. We will shortly start operating in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Chhattisgarh,” said Kaushalendra Singh Yadav, chief executive officer, India Farm Foods.
“The company manufactures value-added products from the produce of farmers. We believe margins are higher in value-added products. We could generate more profits and share with farmers from these cooperatives. Since its inception, we have been growing steadily. We are available on BigBasket, Amazon, Farmveda.in and SouthIndianStore.com. We are also available in Namdhari Fresh, MK Ahmed and supermarkets near your place,” he added.
Yadav said, “All its instant mixes are liked by customers. Its range includes ragi dosa, adai dosa, multi-millet dosa, ragi idli, rava idli, lemon poha, upma, toor dal-based chutney podi, groundnut-based chutney podi, urad- and chana dal-based chutney podi and lemon rasam. All products are doing well. Chutney Podis are in higher demand.”
The company has opted to use social media platforms to market its products. Much of the products are driven by Facebook posts. The company writes content on its site Farmveda.in. It also serves food prepared using our instant mixes at various events, including marathons, and views it as an ideal way to reach consumers.
“We have served 25,000 runners in TCS 10K in Bengaluru. We have also served 14,000 employees of Wipro in the spirit of the Wipro Run. We are a truly social venture, run professionally, with high-quality products that are good for customers, as these are both healthy and tasty. All profits generated via sale of these value-added products goes to farmers,” Yadav said.
Currently, all the manufacturing is outsourced for its instant mixed. It is in the process of setting up manufacturing for its new groundnut-based products. The company takes the support of housewives for the recipes. It has also approached the Central Food Technology Research Institute (CFTRI) and the Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) for technologies.
“The company has raised funds from Kris Gopalakrishnan and from Tata Trust. All the major funding is taking place in technology. It is being promoted by Social Alpha, which is funded by Tata Trust,” Yadav said.
“Current food processing is mainly by big corporates in big plants, which doesn’t help poor farmers. We need to create small machines so that small farmers can create some value-added products and sell those and make some profits,” he added.
“In Farmveda we are making these farmers our stakeholders. They are pooling money and helping themselves to set up big processing units. We have a groundnut processing mill in Anantapur and toor dal processing mill in Adilabad,” Yadav said.
“We are setting up a mango processing unit in Chittoor. All these are owned by farmers,” he added.
“We are working on slow and steady pace. We are not keen to spend much on electronic and print media platforms. There is considerable competition in the FMCG sector. Our bigger challenge is making people aware of our social motive,” Yadav said.
