Saptkrishi is a startup developed in the town of Bhagalpur by Nikky Kumar of IIT Kanpur along his sister Rashmi JHA by using a technology named “sabjikhoti”, which is used to store fruits and vegetables, without the usage of any sort of chemicals or coolant.
Why did Nikky Kumar develop a technology specifically for the agriculture sector?
Nikky Kumar belongs to a small town of Bihar named Bhagalpur and the main activity of this town is the production of various types of fruits and vegetables.
Nikky has stated that from his childhood, he has seen that many of the produce (fruits and vegetables) that were harvested did not reach to the mandis (vegetables and fruits markets) and were dumped as waste because of several factors such as short life of various kinds fruits and vegetables or the farmers did not have the proper storage facilities to store these products.
Due to this reason, Nikky Kumar decided to develop a device in which the farmers could store the fruits and vegetables that were initially left to be wasted. He believed that because of this device, the wasted percentage of these products will rapidly go down and also the conditions of the farmers in his area would be immensely improve.
What is the device that is used for increasing the shelf life of the fruits & vegetables and how is this device cost effective?
The team at saptkrishi have made use of sabjikhoti in order to store the fruits and vegetables.
Sabjikhoti is a unique device that has a tent like shape and has to be assembled by the users themselves. The structure of sabjikhoti consists of high-humidity, sterile isolated chamber of plasma, which is used to oxidize a hormone named “ethylene”. This hormone is oxidized in this chamber because it is can boost the decaying process of fruits and vegetables if not oxidized. By oxidizing this hormone, it breaks into small molecules due to which the decaying process slows down.
Nikky Kumar has stated that sabjikhoti is a versatile product as it can be attached to any type of transport like rickshaw, trucks or even to hand carts. Through this technology, a vendor or farmer can transfer the fruits and vegetables from one location to another without any water loss in the contents of the fruits and vegetables.
By using this technology, you can keep your fruits and vegetables fresh for up to 30 days and this technology operates on 20 watts of solar power and 1 liter of water making the most cost-efficient storage facility in the market. Nikky Kumar claims that sabjikhoti is quite durable and it can used for multiple harvests.
The base model of the sabjkhoti device costs around 10000 INR only and provides the 200kg storage capacity for fruits and vegetables. The reason that this technology is so affordable is because no chemical and no cooling technology is used in its production.
How was sabjikhoti developed?
During his masters, Mr. Nikky developed a portable cold storage, while keeping in mind the factors such as the electricity situation in Bihar and the high percentage of vegetables and fruits that are wasted here.
The only problem in his portable storage was that it could not operate during the monsoon season. Mr. Nikky got depressed due to this, but shortly found a solution to this issue.
In 2018, Mr. Nikky was having a family dinner and at that dinner, his sister, Rashmi Jha, a partner now in this startup, told him that he was doing the same mistake as others, which was that all of them were creating a product that worked as a refrigerator. She told him that instead of developing a refrigerator, he should develop a device that can increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. This discussion was the start of the success for SAPTKRISHI.
After their discussion ended, both Mr. Nikky and his sister start to research about this technology and in ended developed sabjikhoti (The Preservatory).
In how many variants does the sabjikhoti product come in?
Till now, the team at Saptkrishi has developed 3 variants of sabjikhoti.
The first variant can store up to 200kg of fruits and vegetables and comes at a cost of INR 10000. To set the temperature according to the climate, a regulator switch is attached to this product and the user can adjust the temperature of the device, according to the products stored inside the device.
The next 2 variants are of 500 and 1000 kg and costs of these variants are INR 20000 and INR 40000. These 2 variants are connected with the saptkrishi application. When you open up this application, you will need to specify which type of vegetable or fruit are you storing in this device, as by giving these details, the application will set the climate of the device according to the products stored in it.
From where did saptkrishi earned the funding?
The initial funding of 10 lakhs INR was generated from the Nidhi Prayas, located within IIT-Kanpur. These funds were used for the research and development of sabjikhoti technology. Nikky and his team attained grants from IIT-patna and also attained a funding of 15 lakhs from Invent, Villgro and many other grants. All of this money was used in the development of sabjkhoti as a market product.
What is the mission and vision of Saptkrishi?
The vision and mission of Saptkrishi is to increase the development in the agricultural sector with the use of technology and to stabilize the financial state of the biggest stakeholders of this sector, which are farmers.
The business model of Saptkrishi is developed to solve the problems of the farmers rather than making money of them. The long-term goal of this startup is to completely change the face of the agricultural sector by using their skills along with technology.
Saptkrishi has joined hands with many government organizations as well as with many NGOS to market their product to various types of customers as this product will help in reducing the percentage of wastage for fruits and vegetables in the whole country.
Saptkrishi has also made partnerships with agricultural supply chain, farmer producer organization, national rural livelihoods mission and many other organizations in order to know about the problems faced by the farmers.
How is the approach of saptkrishi different from its competitors?
Nikky Kumar has stated that there are not the first ones to find a solution for the reduction of wastage of fruits and vegetables. He says that there are many people that have developed cold storage units on a large and small scale, but the reason that they are not successful is that their technology is quite expensive to attain and maintain and also electricity needs to available 24/7 in order to operate a cold storage of any size. Such factors are not ideals for farmers. Another solution was to use chemical wrapping on the fruits and vegetables, but that idea failed miserably as it had a negative impact on the health of the people.
Nikky Kumar tells us that, the reason sabjikhoti device is better than its competitors is because it requires a small of amount of electricity to operate and it can be connected to any kind of transport.
What problems has Nikky Kumar faced in his journey?
The major problem that Nikky faced was in establishing a solid customer base.
The main customers were farmers and these people are reluctant to use new technology as they think it will provide them more loss than benefit. Due to this reason, Mr. Nikky had to interact with these farmers and explain the details and the benefits that this technology will provide to them. Nikky Kumar also gave the farmers a practical demo of his developed device. Also, these efforts helped Nikky Kumar in solidifying his customer base.
Another problem that saptkrishi facing is that due to a smaller number of staff members, Sabjikhoti can only be bought in groups of 10. The reason for this is that if a customer buys one sabjikhoti and lives really far away and then an engineer of saptkrishi would need to go to that location to fix an issue related to the device if, it arises. This would cost a lot for the company. Mr. Nikky has stated that once the company expands and develops a decent reputation in the society, then individual orders of sabjikhoti will begin.
What is the future goal of saptkrishi?
In the past one year, Nikky Kumar has sold more 40 pieces of sabjikhoti and more than 350 pre orders are yet to be shipped. He says as people gain more exposure of this technology then more orders are expected to be placed in the near future.
Nikky is working on developing various marketing and sales departments and also has developed policy of providing this technology on installments to the customers. He believes that such polices and departments will help him in the expansion of his startup.
He has stated that he wants to develop a full capacity manufacturing plant in order to expand the reach of his business. He also said that within the next months, he wants to work on the feedback that has been developed through the demos given to the farmers and this feedback will help in development of the product at a large scale.
Saptkrishi wants to help more than 10000 farmers by next year through their product.
Saptkrihsi also aims to develop such devices that can adapt to the climate of a particular area. They also want to initialize plot testing with farmers at a big scale and will begin to ship their devices to the customers, who have preordered the device.
Saptkrishi wants to expand their business by developing a website of their own and also by developing a profile of theirs on various social media platforms, as social media is an ideal place to market a product. Vinny Kumar wants all this to be done in a span of one year.
Conclusion
Today’s entrepreneurs start their startups by keeping in mind only thing, which is to make the maximum profit. But this approach is not always beneficial. Mr. Nikky states that people should develop startups to solve problems of the society and the money will come to towards them automatically. So, all the young business men, who have established or are thinking to establish a business, should follow this approach as it can help them in attaining a greater chance of succeeding in life.
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