In Tetavali village, a five-hour drive 180 km from Pune, the place conventional millets have been as soon as grown in each area, change had quietly crept in. A lot of the youths within the village had migrated to close by cities for jobs, and people who stayed again have been cultivating solely rice and had forgotten concerning the legacy of millet farming. Nitin Deodhar, 59, and his spouse Meenakshi, 58, who visited the village very often, noticed each a disaster and a chance right here. This gave beginning to Sonkan in 2021, a startup that sells nutritious and healthful millet-based meals, and different merchandise of Konkan.
The state of affairs of the villagers of Tetavali had a deep affect on the Deodhars. Nitin thought that he ought to lead by instance and purchased 15 acres of land within the space (self-invested) to develop their conventional crops – ragi and varai together with cashew. He employed some locals to do the job hoping that it could spur the others to get again to the crops their land may bear. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)
The way it began
Nitin, who was on the time operating a really profitable MEP (Mechanical, Electrical Plumbing) Consultancy providing companies throughout the globe, mentioned, “Our family roots are in Konkan and we’d go there regularly, and, on our trips, we saw that the locals were leaving the village to work in cities. The bright students would go to the cities to get jobs as clerks, and delivery men while the not-so-bright students would stay back to tend to the farm. In addition to this, their dietary habits were changing. Instead of eating what was over generations produced by their farms, they were switching to government-provided rice and wheat that came from ration shops and came with its own economic pitfalls.”
Nitin and Meenakshi discovered this very disturbing. Says Nitin, “The area traditionally would grow millets – the hardy crop. Hardy because it could withstand a drought as well as flood excess rainfall situations. Besides being a hardy crop, it was grown in the sloping wastelands of Konkan. However, falling prey to the ongoing trends, the villagers of Konkan shifted to growing only rice and giving up ragi (finger millet) and varai (barnyard millet) which need very little tending. This was also changing their food habits. This not only affected their earnings but also impacted their health.”
Preliminary steps
The state of affairs of the villagers of Tetavali had a deep affect on the Deodhars. Nitin thought that he ought to lead by instance and purchased 15 acres of land within the space (self-invested) to develop their conventional crops – ragi and varai together with cashew. He employed some locals to do the job hoping that it could spur the others to get again to the crops their land may bear.
Nonetheless, in 2020 Covid hit the nation. Says Nitin, “We put the 300 kgs of ragi in our car and came back to our home in Pune.” Not figuring out what to do with the ragi, Meenakshi sprouted a couple of kilos, dried it and after roasting floor it in her kitchen grinder. “We put it into 200 gms packets and distributed it to family and friends.” Quickly those self same individuals have been asking for extra and Meenakshi made some extra. In any case, she had 300 kgs of ragi at house.
Says Nitin, “Our friends said why don’t you keep this ragi satva in a local store, so we won’t have to nag you for it.” And Nitin did simply that. He went to the native grocer close to his home at Swargate and saved a couple of packets there. Quickly they have been bought. The grocery store then mentioned, “Why don’t you get a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence and Nitin followed that advice. “My daughter who’s done her architecture offered to design the label, logo and other such marketing collateral. After the FSSAI registration, you need to have a trademark. We first thought of the name Deodhar’s Konkan Sampanna. However, this was not possible because Deodhar being a proper name, Konkan was a geographic area and Sampanna was a brand owned by the Tatas. So, we coined the name Sonkan. In 2021 we had it registered.
Learning the ropes
What started with an effort to help their family village was soon turning out to be a small company. Nitin started by distributing his ragi satva for free and when the demand kept increasing, he got into the commercial and legal mandates required. He now had to charge for the satva. How did he figure out how much it costs? Says Nitin, “I simply saw what was the price of the other satva products. They sold for ₹50 generally for 200 gms. I priced ours at ₹55/- because our process was more demanding and the product more nutritious.”
Sonkan satva is made by sprouting, roasting after which milling the ragi. This meant that the fibre was accessible because the ragi was semi-cooked while roasting, making it simpler to digest. One thing that hooked his clients who saved repeating their orders.
The 300 kgs of ragi would quickly recover from and be depleted. What subsequent? At the moment the couple invested in a flour mill and a weighing balance. Nonetheless, grinding massive quantities of ragi made the machine too noisy in the home. “So, we bought a professional flour mill and shifted operations to our village where the ragi was being grown. At first, we employed a local lady who would grind the flour, weigh it and pack it. Once a week we drove down to our village and picked up the stock for sale.”
Rising organically
Native males work the Sonkan farm and native ladies function the mill. “We didn’t know the first thing about marketing a product such as this. We simply followed the demand. Friends wanted it in a shop so as to not disturb us at home, so we approached our first retailer. We moved there. Then more people wanted it, so we approached more stores.” At the moment, they have been promoting about 100 packets per day. However the demand saved egging them on to extra development. By 2022 we wanted to supply extra ragi than what was being grown on our farm.” By then Nitin understood clearly how rural markets labored. “If you go to the wholesaler to sell your produce you have to accept the price he gives you. But if the wholesaler comes to your farm, then you can dictate the price. And that can happen only if you are producing a viable quantity in hundreds of tons.”
This pushed Nitin to acquire the ragi from native aggregator brokers. “The village economy is different. A small farmer may approach an agent with the produce of his farm which may be a few 100 kilos. Instead of money he may need dal or rice or some such and do a barter. This is something I cannot offer. So, I procure the ragi but from our village only. The aggregator does agents do the settling of their dues.”
However has this succeeded in increment of areas rising millets within the Konkan district? Says Nitin, “It most certainly has. While I would not have the acreage of land, I now required that when we started when we had just one farmer, i.e. me, growing millets, but now 30 farmers are growing growing millets.”
Discovering alternatives
Meenakshi, who has a deep information of medicines, knew very nicely that consuming proper can maintain you away from pharmaceutical merchandise. So, she saved experimenting with the millets as the purchasers wished extra. “They wanted to know if they could make idlis and cakes with millets.”
Together with her PhD in pharmacy and research in psychology and diet, Meenakshi knew that individuals have been getting well being aware, but additionally didn’t have the time or the inclination to slog over cooking. They wished fast, easy-to-make nutritious meals.“Says she, “No one would spend time and effort to make a jowari bhakri but would very easily flip it on a tawa to make a pancake or chila in minutes.”
She began by making a ragi cake combine. However realisation dawned. “Who would want to eat a healthy cake on their child’s birthday? Celebrations are meant to be cheat days when the occasion overrides all health issues. So, I abandoned the cake mix and created a pancake mix that also doubles up as a cake mix” says Meenakshi. She took ragi and dal, and added soda bicarb to make a ready-to-cook idli combine. Added dals to make a chila. “All healthy and tasty.”
Development compulsions
Understanding that as a enterprise grows one wants to arrange professionally for it, the couple has now employed a gross sales supervisor, 4 salesmen, and a model guide to assist them. Says Nitin, “Our brand consultant told us that we should position ourselves as “the first meal of the day” largely as a result of individuals might eat early or late however typically keep true to their ‘breakfast.’ So, we have now added that as our positioning assertion. Additionally, we’re in talks with retailers to show our merchandise as ‘the first meal of the day’ be it pancakes, chilas, breakfast cereals, satva, thalipeeth bhajanis and so forth.”
Future plan
Up to now, the Deodhars have invested ₹40 lakh on this enterprise and Sonkan has grown 3X. Sonkan now has a complete of twenty-two merchandise consuming 800 kgs of millet monthly with revenues of ₹90 lakh projected for this yr. Final yr his income was ₹36 lakh and the yr earlier than that ₹11 lakh. They began with three individuals and as we speak they’re using 22 individuals. They aspire to develop into a global model promoting nutritious and healthful millet-based meals, and different produce of Konkan.