1)How do you transport your goods to other places?

A) We have a tempo that we use to transport the supplies to various places like Visakhapatnam.

We also deliver seeds to an agricultural research station in Visakhapatnam, primarily millet, wheat,
and other cereals.

2) Our famers were being conned by the middlemen and losing money. NABARD has suggested that
you start a FPO. There are 970 farmers in this and we produce organic jaggery. We sell jaggery in
cubes, powder and block forms. The cubes are mostly sold to pharma companies.

We have expanded from jaggery to other products to help farmers better market their products and
achieve profits. The vegetables that are not sold are usually used to make powders this is
predominantly to help women. We also make chikki, sunnundda and putarekulu based on orders
from the users. We also sell different rice variants like black rice, red rice and other traditional
variants. We have turmeric and tamarind also that we are trying to sell. We also provide financial
literacy training to our members.

3) What is the shelf life of your jaggery?

Its roughly 3months from the date of manufacturing under normal conditions.

We visited a trade show in Vijayawada where we tried to sell our product at 80 while others were
selling at higher prices. Consumers were unwilling to buy our products as they believed they were of
inferior quality. We had to change our packaging and pricing immediately to make some sales.

They have cold storage which is solar powered and maintains temp from 5-8 degrees. They use it to
store vegetables and other products.

They provide veggies, milk and eggs to schools for mid-day meals.

They also have a millet processing area.

Q) What is your production capacity?

1-2 tons per day.

This village has 500 acres of land under sugar cane. Organic jaggery is usually made after Feb.

Each batch takes 1 to 2 hours to manufacture.

Q) At what temperature is this boiled?

Approx. 150 degrees.

650 litres of sugar cane juice give 1ton of jaggary

Q) What is the difference between organic and inorganic?

a) We add chemicals to it, chemical name does not audible clearly.

we use the waste from sugarcane to fire our boilers.

our factory that we will be constructing will help us to manufacture in much more hygienic
environments.
We are currently selling to IIT madras, Bangalore, ashrama in hyd, Visakhapatnam. We also organise
stalls sometimes. We also sell to some retailers in 250grm blocks. We sell to local whole sellers also
in 15kg blocks. We don’t have any online presence. The wholes seller usually collects directly from
the farm. For others we tied up with navatha transport to ship to the users. The user has to pay for
shipping charges also. We bear the charges up to ramabadhrapuram which is the transportation
center. We don’t have a dehumidifier because of which our product currently has only 3month shelf
life. Otherwise, we can have a 1-year life. Our future factory will have a 2ton capacity and it will also
have a dehumidifier.

Our FPO has 1cr turnover. We only sell 1-2 tons in non-season. During the season we sell up to
5tons. We connect the farmers with the wholesalers for procurement and the money is sent to the
FPO account. We sometimes provide an advance to farmers also.

The production happens mainly for 5 months.

There are around 6 production units in this surrounding area.

Roughly 30,000 tons are produced while FPO sells only 100 tons only. The wholesaler buys the rest
of the product and gives very less margin to the farmers.

We give farmers more than the wholesalers, but we restrict them in terms of the production
process. We buy only organic products. But because we try to help the farmers, we help them to
connect the wholesalers to buy the inorganic products also but it’s not branded by us.

It costs roughly 200 rs to transport 100kg to rambadrapuram.

We tried to sell in more but our packaging is not as good as others. We want you to design a new
packaging for us. Dmart also dint like our packaging.

Q) Do you have any salespeople?

A) We have one Vizag and Guntur but mostly I receive orders on WhatsApp, and we deliver them

Q) How much can you spend on marketing?

A) We don’t have much but we can consider it if you come up with a plan.

You have to find partners to sell for both organic and inorganic.

Chikki and other products consume around 1ton of jaggery per year.