At a time when farmers are in distress across the country, Our Food, a young B2B startup, is busy providing end-to-end solutions to rural, unemployed youth, connecting them to agrarian economy.
Founded in 2016 by IIM-A graduate V. Bala Reddy as CEO, Shashikanth M, an IIT-Bombay alumnus, as logistics head, and Raghuprasad M, an NIT-Warangal product, as technology head, the company helps youth set up food processing units, procures the produce from them and sells it to bulk buyers.
Speaking to The Hindu , Mr. Reddy said, “There are a lot of unemployed, educated youth with an entrepreneurial mindset in rural areas. Many of them come to cities in search of a livelihood, but don’t earn much. We at Our Food identify youth between 25 and 35 years of age who have passed class X at least. We buy from them and sell the same on our tech platforms. The farmer partners get between 20% and 25% more than the market rate.”
Mr. Reddy said there are 10 chilli and two dal processing units in Warangal district, 12 dal processing units in Adilabad, four dal processing units in Ranga Reddy district and two such units in Nalgonda, among others.
According to Our Food COO Hemasundar Dhavili, the idea behind the startup is to ‘decentralise the food processing industry’ by creating farmer franchises that use low-cost, micro-processing units and raw material at the farm gate.
“Rice, dals such as green gram, red gram and Bengal gram, and chilli are being processed at 30 of our franchises. While each is run by a rural youth, it gives direct and indirect employment to around 500 persons,” Mr. Dhavili said.
Each franchise costs approximately ₹4 lakh. This includes a shed that costs about ₹1 lakh, GI sheet rafters worth about ₹50,000 and processing machinery worth around ₹2.5 lakh. An additional ₹1 lakh as working capital is required for raw material procurement. Each unit has a capacity to process 100 tonnes a year.
Raising funds
“While ₹1 lakh for the shed is to be borne by the farmer partner, the rest will be raised by us with the help of non-banking finance companies. At the moment, there are 30 operational units, while another 40 are under construction,” Mr. Dhavili said.
The company has plans to expand its network to 500 farmer franchises by the end of May. Our Food has raised funding to the tune of USD 3 million.
