Farm2kitchen
Farm2Kitchen® offers all good foods-grocery and lifestyle products like clothing or cosmetics-through an omni-channel retailing model. We work with small and marginal farmers and connects them to consumers in cities. Farm2Kitchen® has been a built on a niche of everything within good foods. We work with a number of farmers groups and are connected to thousands of small farmers across the country through our partner organizations. All Farm2Kitchen® products are purest Mother Nature has to offer, cultivated and harvested in community farming.
The good foods we offer are grown in farms which have rich soil, fresh water and clean air, and so we are committed to doing our part to protect the health of our planet. We make it our responsibility to take on important issues-such as supporting good farming practices and honest labeling-so you can be sure that the products you buy from Farm2Kitchen® are as authentic as possible. We know how great food should taste and we source our foods only from places and people we know & trust. We create strong partnerships with the people who grow the delicious and nourishing food you have come to expect from us. The farmers who grow our ingredients are just as passionate about quality and sustainability as we are. Our sustainability focus has evolved over the years, but we have never lost sight of our goal: to do business differently-and for good. Welcome to the world of Good Foods!
Farm2Kitchen®®, an organic food distribution startup, has operated an online store and several retail stores across western India for the past five years. They have developed a network of over 100,000 small farmers and producers and provided them the training and resources to grow organic food. This business has grown from a modest initial investment of $60,000 raised from friends and family.
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JOURNEY
Farm2Kitchen® began from a personal need and has gone on to explore the subtleties in the business of good food. Over the years, we studied Indian consumers behaviour and worked on a strategy that has been a good one so far. Unless the consumers are connected to ground reality, he/she is not going to consume good food products.
Our journey for good foods dates way back to year 2008-when we were looking for good foods for personal consumption in the United States of America. Having to face the difficulty to find good food in a developed country, we just thought of the problems faced by people in our motherland. This lead us to deep study of the agricultural systems, the market and the buying behaviour of people in our home country.
The company started experiment of delivering fresh vegetables and fruits to some localities in Gurgaon in February 2011. The way it was appreciated made us to look beyond one city an we expanded our operations in multiple cities across India in January 2012. We joined hands with one of the leading growers of organic foods in India to serve major cities and towns across the country. The move was challenging and rapid expansion was not possible as the grocery delivery is not a cake walk in a diverse country like India. We had our ups and downs during this journey.
To serve people better in small towns and localities, we started Farm2Kitchen® Stores-a retail chain wherein people can buy all good foods. We launched these stores in 3 states (Maharashtra, Gujarat and Haryana). We worked with a large number of farmers across Maharashtra and some of them were not growing organic foods but growing foods with uttermost care-which we call good foods. We started helping them by exporting there farm produce (majorly Red Onions, Pomegranates, Banana) to Gulf countries and Southeast Asian countries. Today we are a growing agricultural business which is helping farmers get the right price for their produce and also helping the consumers in getting the right kind of foods.
Over the past few years, Farm2Kitchen® has developed a network of more than 100,000 small farmers across India. We provided these farmers training, mentoring and direct access to the market, thus providing them better value for their produce and improving their bottom line. We operate Organic Food stores as well as distribute food to processed food makers. Farm2Kitchen® CEO Anand Dholi believes that the food value chain needs to transform from a production-driven system, to a demand-based one. In order to do so, the producers have to be connected directly to the consumers. This is a win-win for both, the producer and the consumer, because the consumer is also curious about where the food on his plate is coming from, whether it was responsibly grown, how it gets transported before reaching the point of sale, and the shelf life to ensure its safe for consumption. The only way to achieve these objectives is to build a hub that brings together all the players in the food value chain.
TRANSPARENCY IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN
Small and marginal farmers from Asia, whose land holdings are below 2 hectares, produce almost 80 percent of the total food. So, it is indisputable that they are important for agricultural growth, food security and economic development in Asia. The situation is not very different across the rest of the developing world. Therefore, the future of sustainable agricultural growth and food security around the world depends on the performance of these small and marginal farmers.
Unfortunately, most of these smallholder farmers depend on rain for their crop and are plagued by low productivity and inferior quality. They are locked out of higher paying markets because they lack access to quality seeds, fertilizers, training and capital. UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has argued that an innovative approach is desperately needed, because most developing countries are likely to become vulnerable to food shortage due to climate change and its toxic combination of rising temperatures, natural disasters, and erratic rainfall patterns.
FARM2KITCHEN BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORM
Farm2Kitchen® is introducing Farm2K Blockchain platform. Farm2K is utilizing the Blockchain technology of distributed ledger and smart contracts to bring all the participants in the supply chain including the farmers, transporters, distributors, processed food brands, wholesalers, retail stores and other food outlets on a single hybrid platform. It is a secure and incorruptible infrastructure, as all actions are registered in a Blockchain.
Farm2K Blockchain is the brainchild of a highly proficient team of experts with a wealth of experience in Agriculture, Food Distribution and Technology industries. The idea is to empower smallholder farmers by providing them the data to plan the crop right, thus improve their revenue, enable them to provide better value to consumers and reduce food wastage due to oversupply.”
When it comes to Food safety, the industry works in a reactive mode rather than a proactive one. Therefore, if there is an issue with the food such as some infection, then the problem is not identified until people fall sick and get hospitalized. As per WHO, one in every 10 people worldwide suffer from food-borne diseases annually. Farm2K will provide the ability to detect these problems early in the value chain and notify the concerned parties such as food stores so they can pull the affected batch of stock, off the shelves. According to the leading food experts, this is a huge benefit to overall food safety in the developing world.
FARM2KITCHEN ICO
Farm2kitchen’s founders bring a diverse experience from Food Production, Distribution, Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Information Technology (IT) specializing in the Food industry. We are utilizing our experience and the huge network of farm producers, food packagers, retailers, and restaurants to envision the portfolio of products and solutions that will address the critical problems faced by the food industry.
Farm2Kitchen®® is building the first technology platform of its kind for the Food Supply Chain. By utilizing the Blockchain technology of distributed ledger and smart contracts to uniquely track every step of the food delivery on a shared ledger in order to ensure transparency, Food Safety and provide the foundation for sustainable agricultural growth and food security. Farm2Kitchen®® is also planning to expand its operation to include distribution to restaurants, cafeterias, and food services across western India.
We will make the technology platform available on the public Cloud as a Software as a Service (SaaS) application on subscription basis for other food supply chains to use around the world. Apart from the SaaS offering, we will provide Application Programming Interface (API) access for developer who would like to build their own apps for the platform.
The company expansion plan will be supported by raising money from an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Sales projections for the next three years are based on current sales success with the target customer base in Asia. Initial contacts have been made with thousands of restaurants and retail outlets throughout the western states of India and the potential target markets have been identified. This plan will result in sales revenues growing to a breakeven point by the end of the second year of operations.