๐ Using Tech To Prevent Food Wastage?
Food wastage is a major problem plaguing the world. But one startup may have the answer to reduce this waste and increase farmer profits.
Every year India wastes about 68 million tonnes of food every year.
This figure is almost criminal in a country where 4,500 children die of hunger each day and 71% of the population cannot afford a healthy meal.
So, what can we do to solve this problem?
๐๏ธ A Feast of Waste
Not only is food wastage taking away meals from 870 million people (enough to end world hunger), but it is also killing the planet.
Food waste goes to landfills and rots, creating methane which then causes global warming.
Households are one of the biggest producers of food waste.
But it can only be reduced if and when people change their habits.
Changing habits at such a micro level is a mammoth task. But one area where we can make a difference with regard to food waste is the retail sector.
16% of all crops that India produces are wasted because it perishes before it can reach a customer.
This problem is caused due to lack of infrastructure like cold storages and supply chain inefficiencies.
If we could just plug these gaps, we could end up saving tons of food every day.
And the biggest waste that we can cut down on is: fruit and vegetable waste.
Almost 18% of all the fruits and vegetables produced in India are wasted.
Why?
Because these are perishable. If farmers or vendors cannot find enough customers for the fruit or veggies they have bought, they have to throw them away.
This costs us around Rs. 13,300 crores.
But we can save this money (and of course the fruits and veggies).
๐ฅ๏ธ Using Tech to Make A Difference
A startup called Fresh From Farm has come up with a unique artificial intelligence and machine learning based model to reduce this waste.
The company wished to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables directly from the farm to consumers and vendors.ย
But when it entered this space, it realised how problematic the supply chain was and how profits of farmers, vendors and companies involved in this process were all going down due to the wastage.
So, it decided to solve this problem.
What the company's AI-based model does is understand consumer needs, their buying capacity, the amount and the quality of fruit and vegetables that they usually buy and so on.
This helps them sell produce exactly according to the customer demands thus reducing waste.
For instance, if a certain vendor catering to a certain area is only able to sell 50 kgs of mangoes, then that's how much the company will sell to them.
Or if a particular area is seeing more sales of apples worth Rs. 80/kg instead of those worth Rs. 100/kg, then Fresh From Farm will dispatch cheaper apples to those areas.
The company's model already seems to be working as it has managed to reduce food waste to ~2%.ย
What's more, it has also managed to raise farmers' and vendors' profits by 13% by cutting out both wastage and middlemen.
The best part? This has made vendors' lives easier. They no longer have to wake up at 4 am to go to the mandi to buy fruit.
The right kind of fruit is delivered to them automatically.
And it's not just wastage that the company is focused on. Its main aim is to provide hygienic, nutritious and good-quality fruit and vegetables for customers.
For this, it has created two brands: Happy Froot and Happy Greens.
With these brands, it aims to become the Amul of fruits and veggies, ensuring high-quality good products.
Right now, the company is working with around 25 vendors in Delhi and plans to expand to over 1,000 more vendors soon.
It is currently focusing only on Delhi-NCR, before expanding across India.
This market alone can provide the company with a business worth Rs. 18,000-Rs. 20,000 crores per annum.
And even though the company isn't planning on expanding geographically right now, it soon plans on tieing up with hotels, entering the processed food and veggies market and the pre-cut veggies space.
The company has already managed to increase its revenue from Rs. 8.75 lakhs in November 2021 to Rs. 27 lakhs last month.
This is possible because the company has a 90% retention rate.
It has some competitors in the space but none of them is currently using AI to reduce wastage like Fresh From Farm.
And the company now has a long road ahead.
Want to be a part of the companyโs growth journey?
Wondering what else the company wants to do in the future? Join us for an Insider Insights session with Rohit Nagdewani, founder at Fresh From Farm, on Saturday, June 18, at 7 pm.
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