Hyderabad: Our Food, a city based agri-tech startup, announced on Friday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Telangana government to set up over 20,000 micro food processing units across the state.
The startup claims that it will provide direct employment to 40,000 rural farmers and indirect employment to 60,000 people.
Founder of Our Food Bala Reddy claimed that his company is a tech platform for farmers where they will be able to process at the farm directly and sell directly to customers removing middle-men. He added, “Our company will also provide soil testing and farmers insurance services.”
Reddy also said that he has received massive support from the Telangana government for his initiative since 2016, when he pitched his idea at T-Hub, a state-run incubator for startups. He stated that each franchise unit will comprise 500 farmers, and that his aim is to make more than 100 lakh farmers benefit over a period of 5 years through better price realization.
Sushma, a representative of the Telangana government who was present at the event, said that the state will facilitate the company to identify beneficiaries and will help set up 20,000 micro food processing units.
Jayesh Ranjan, Principal sectary, IT and industries said “It is our constant endeavour to promote startups in AgriTech. This MoU will enable farm level processing, thereby benefiting farmers and unemployed youth.”
Mr. K Chandrasekhar, CMO of Our Food said, “Our Food products strike a chord with all consumers who want to contribute to the betterment of the incomes of the famer.”
Impact on consumers
With regard to consumers, Reddy said that the products are 100% preservative-free and that the same will be written on the packaging of products. About the cost of the farm produce, he assured it would not adversely affect the end buyer.
“The consumers need not worry. This will not affect the consumer in a negative way, the prices will go down instead of increasing,” he told siasat.com.
Our Food is a technology driven agribusiness platform that is on a mission to decentralize the food processing industry with an innovative farmer adoption and engagement supply-chain platform, based in Telangana, Andhra pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.