Farm to shopper, or F2C as it’s recognized right now, is basically a direct channel between farmers and the top shoppers, which helps get rid of provide chain inefficiencies whereas guaranteeing higher pricing to each events. With wholesome residing and wellness changing into an integral a part of the city life-style, transparency of processes and traceability of meals have turn out to be key considerations for shoppers. This change in shopper choice, particularly on account of Covid-19, is driving the rise of F2C agritech startups in India.
Additionally, with the applying of new-age applied sciences and digitisation, the F2C section has gained consideration from outstanding buyers in India, boosting its progress prospects additional. “India has always boasted premium quality products but achieving scale was a daunting task given our expensive and unreliable distribution systems. The aggressive spread of low-cost internet fuelled the growth of community building avenues and began giving local producers better visibility,” says Subhadeep Sanyal, companion at Omnivore, an impression enterprise capital agency. “It also magnified the myriad issues in the supply chain. Today, various F2C brands are eliminating these inefficiencies, making it a win-win scenario for both farmers and consumers,” he provides.
Take as an illustration, Deep Rooted, launched by Clover Ventures, a greenhouse agritech startup. Founded in 2018, the startup works with about 60 small-scale farmers with landholdings of greater than 70 acres round Bengaluru and Hyderabad. It began as a B2B provide chain for perishables and assisted small and marginal farmers in producing high-quality perishable crops. During the pandemic the startup pivoted to an F2C avatar, Deep Rooted. The D2C vegatables and fruits model is based on three pillars: recent, clear, and neighborhood. It delivers recent produce in beneath 24 hours from farms lower than 150 km away from city centres.
Says Avinash BR, co-founder at Clover Ventures: “With consumers valuing high-quality produce, we witnessed steep demand for perishables from consumers residing in housing societies during lockdowns. This saw our portfolio of products being doubled as compared to the pre-Covid level. We envisage building India’s first fresh produce supply chain that’s adapted to the challenge of climate change.”
Then, there may be Farmley, a direct-from-farm model delivering, what are billed as, the freshest and cleanest dry fruits, to the world. “Sourced directly from farms, we at Farmley make available nuts and dry fruits that have been passed on to us through generations,” says Akash Sharma, co-founder & CEO at Farmley. Sourcing merchandise at honest worth costs, Farmley has elevated farmers’ incomes severalfold, constructed a fast-growing community-driven model, and delivered premium high quality nuts and dry fruits to shoppers who worth each well being and style.
The F2C phenomenon isn’t confined to vegatables and fruits alone. A working example is ReshaMandi, mentioned to be India’s first and largest B2B market digitising the pure fibre provide chain. “Our larger purpose at ReshaMandi is to create value for all our stakeholders even as we provide sustainable solutions,” says Mayank Tiwari, its founder & CEO. “Early this year, we diversified into the D2C space through our platform ReshaWeaves, wherein we aim to bring exquisite sarees made of natural fabrics to our consumers at disruptive prices.”
He provides: “We want to create a value-added natural fibres supply chain that will transform the industry.” ReshaMandi additionally gives value-added providers resembling high quality testing, technical advisories, high-quality inputs, and market linkages. It has boarded greater than 35,000 small companies spanning farmers, small and medium enterprise producers, and retailers onto its provide chain. The startup’s efforts have helped improve small enterprise incomes by 35-55% and pushed the usage of indigenous uncooked silk dramatically.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”