Finding a perfect and healthy snack for children these days has become a daunting task for every mother at home. And many children are interested in eating outside food rather than eating fruits and vegetables at home. And even in this busy life, many of them dont have time to cook and eat and they end up eating noodles or some instant food.
To keep check for all those problems, Keerthi Priya and her mother Odapalli Vijaya Lakshmi have started nurture fields to provide nutritious food for your children. The main aim to start that business is to reduce food wastage. And they are not only doing that, indirectly they are helping farmers and the local community to reap the profits.
Interesting, Right? Let’s dive deep into their story and know their accomplishments towards their innovative idea.
Story of Mother and Daughter Duo From Suryapet
Keerthi Priya and her mother Odapalli Vijaya Lakshmi are from Thonda village in Suryapet district, rural Telangana. Keerthi Priya was completely spent among farms.
Keerthi completed her MBA from IIM Calcutta, after completing her BPharmacy from Calcutta. After completing her higher studies, she started working in different companies in different locations like Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore to get experience in her job.
While she was juggling with her job responsibilities, as she was away from home, she used to miss her mother’s food taste, and her mother got an idea and started sending sun-dried vegetables like carrots, and tomatoes to Keerthi. So that they can directly add to the gravy.
Her mother taught her that it would be easy for her daughter to cook food and eat healthy.
When Keerthi was a teenager she was shocked by the massive post about food harvest wastage. And the idea of her mother gave her an idea for Keerthi about those sun-dried vegetables and she started researching the benefits, and scope of sun-dried fruits and vegetables.
And Keerthi taught that this idea could even slowly put an end to food wastage too. Even today we see as many farmers throwing their food in the dumping yards due to the lack of cost that they need.
With many discussions with her mother and others. Finally, she started a company ” Nurture Fields” with the retail arm KOH. The main aim of this company is simple, i.e. to reduce food wastage.
Business Story of This Nurture Fields Duo
In 2018, Keerthi quit her job and returned to her home in Telangana, and she was filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of the new venture. And they bought a solar dryer to dehydrate the vegetables.
Even though we have the zeal to start a business, running is not an easy task. They have provided many trials and errors and they have spent time with branding agencies and with farmers till 2021.
Finally, in 2021, Keerthi and her mother Vijaya Laxmi, started Nurture Fields with Rs. 4 lakhs as their first investment. They will take the raw material in the season of high supply and low demand season because, at that time, the farmers dump the food due to an unavailable market.
So, if they take raw materials at that time they can reduce food wastage and also they can provide business and profits to farmers. Presently, nurture fields offer a wide range of dehydrated vegetables and fruits like mango, papaya, spinach, tomato, cabbage, chikoo, etc..
They are also developing interesting FMCG products in ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat categories like juice mixes, soup mixes, and many others.
Keerthi says “ We dont produce food in bulk, as we have the in-house agronomists who carry out soil analysis, studies on biopesticides, etc.… as well as we also have the scientists who conduct intensive studies to check the quality of produce.
And they work with a team of 15 farmers from Thonda, Mamidala, Tirumalagiri, and Kothamarthi villages of Telangana. As Keerthi has agronomists and officers they will test and tell the farmers about the best crop they can get profits with that soil.
Empowering Local Women and Farmers with the Business
Coming to farmers, trusting our company, and changing to new ways from the old ways is not that easy. But many of the farmers are trusting slowly as they are seeing the success than previous.
Along with farmers, Nurture Fields was also interested in empowering women, and after they started the production they thought to motivate women to come and work with them.
Today they empower 15 farmers and 15 women and they even provide them with washrooms, transport facilities, etc.
As Keerthi and her mother love their labor, they say that the dream is coming to be reality.
The Success of Nurture Fields
After much hard work, Koh’s food products are bringing smiles to many Indian homes with their spiced okra chips, candied chikoo, powdered ginger root, dehydrated vegetable combo packs, dehydrated carrot cubes, and others.
They have fulfilled 2,000 orders to date, have served over 1600 customers, and ship pan India. Keerthi’s mother Odapalli Vijaya Lakshmi says that she never imagined a simple trick of sending her daughter dehydrated tomatoes would one day scale into a business.
Final Outcomes
Keerthi says that running an enterprise is not an easy thing. But you need to be persistent and ride along. Hope that the information we have provided on the success story of the mother and daughter is helpful to you. One innovative idea turned into a successful business.
So, for anyone, who is thinking of starting a business but thinking about whether it will be successful or not, you can take these mother and daughter as inspiration.