courtesy-yourstory
Kiwis
from New Zealand, Cattley guavas from Colombia, Chinese mulberries –
exotic fruits that S. Madhusudhan was told would not survive in
Bengaluru. But, they did not just survive but thrived in his organic
farm in suburban Bengaluru.
Prior to starting up back2basics, Madhusudhan, an IIM-B alumnus,
served three decades in advertising and marketing at Bharti Airtel
(South India) and at Manipal Group, where he was a Senior VP of Global
Marketing. Recalling the day he collapsed in the office, 55-year-old
Madhusudhan says, “This incident forced me to re-evaluate my lifestyle
and food habits.” While recuperating, he was advised to take up
activities for rest and relaxation and found himself drawn to gardening.
On a small plot he owned, he began chemical-free cultivation of greens,
soon producing far more than his family could consume. He distributed
the produce among friends and family, whose encouragement led him to
turn to full-time farming.
Food with a bitter truth
In 2010, Madhusudhan began researching organic cultivation and
studying the Indian organic produce market. He found that the level of
ignorance about the source of food in India is extremely high and the
inclination to find out about it is low, owing to low ticket size and
repetitive, high frequency of purchase.
Organic
retailers preyed on this, making specious claims about the exotic
provenance of produce to quote premium prices. “The lettuce you eat in
Bengaluru came not from Ooty or the Garhwal mountains, but most likely
from a farm irrigated by one of Bengaluru’s polluted lakes,” he adds,
offering an eyewitness account of carrots being washed in
toxic Varthur Lake.
He also learnt that organic retailers are largely distributors, not
growers of the produce they sell, making them equally unaware of how and
where it is grown.
In 2011, Madhusudan started
back2basics farm,
a unique Bengaluru-based farm-to-fork company that supplies locally
grown organic food with same-day-as-harvest doorstep delivery.
Spread over 100 acres, the company practises chemical-free
agriculture, selling 90 varieties of seasonal produce in four categories
– fruits, vegetables, greens, exotics to clients that include large
corporates, retail chains, independent organic suppliers. Its EU
certified products are exported to Europe and Singapore.
Madhusudhan is part of a small but expanding breed who’ve left successful careers to start organic agri-businesses like
First Agro,
Lumiere, and
Akshayakalpa Farms.
Organic farming received a boost with the latest budgetary allocation
of Rs 412 crore and a promise to bring five lakh acres under organic
farming in the next three years. State governments in Arunachal Pradesh,
Sikkim, and Kerala have pioneered programmes promoting food
self-sufficiency and safe agriculture, and a growing wave of
citizens practise organic terrace farming
in cities. Estimates that India’s market for organic food will grow at a
CAGR of over 25–30 per cent between 2015 and 2020 are an indication
that the organic movement is not a fad, but a sign of better awareness
of the right to safe, healthy food.
Going where the customer is
In
late 2015, with growing production and a loyal clientele, all looked
great for back2basics. But, on her annual visit home, Bhairavi,
Madhusudhan’s daughter, realised that while it ran a successful B2B
operation, there were gaps in how back2basics’ produce was reaching end
consumers and thereby in the perception they had of it. Consumers were
either unaware that the produce they bought came from back2basics or
were doubtful about the benefits of organic produce. A graduate of the
Huntsman Programme at Wharton School of Business, 25-year-old Bhairavi
is the first Indian girl admitted to the programme. In January 2016, she
resigned her job in private equity and joined back2basics to launch its
consumer focussed operation. “Just 45 days post launch, we are
fulfilling over 200 orders a day with 60 per cent repeat customers”, she
gleams.
To meet this growing response, Back2Basics reorganised its delivery
schedule from twice a week to six days of the week and supplies produce
across Bengaluru. Currently, orders are taken only on their website, but
a mobile app is in the offing.
Back2basics entered the B2C market to change the perception around
organic produce, take people closer to the source of their food, and
make organic produce available at a lower price point by going directly
to customers. She adds,
We started the back2basics experiential farm that people
can visit, see how organic farming is done, even pick and eat food off
the plants.
Zero-waste farming
Back2basics uses natural farm-based fertilisers such as cattle and
poultry manure, neem and oilseed cakes. Each farm is a raised unit
surrounded by a moat that harvests the surface runoff from irrigation or
rain. This raises the water table and reduces the frequency of
irrigation to once a week. A borewell recharge system ensures water
supply even in the dry season and all farm waste is composted. Stems and
leaves of its sweet corn crop, known to enhance milk production in
cows, are donated to an organisation rearing 5,000 heads of indigenous
cattle and in turn gobar slurry, the chief fertiliser in organic farming
is received. “Their waste is our wealth and vice versa”, explains
Madhusudhan, alluding to an ancient farming practice that gives the
brand its name.
Crops are grown in batches to stagger harvest over the month and
avail fresh produce daily. Those not harvested on the day of delivery
remains on the plant so it does not deteriorate. This explains why
back2basics operates no storage facilities or chilling plants.
However, Madhusudhan realised that it was not enough to just grow
quality produce, but to ensure it reached end consumers as fresh as it
was when harvested. With this, back2basics launched its own logistics
operations with staff and a fleet of delivery vans.
B2C and B2B orders are consolidated at the end of every day and sent
to farm supervisors. Harvesting begins at 1.30 a.m. so that produce can
reach the hub by dawn, where it is cleaned, sorted, segregated, and
sorted client wise. It is then colour coded and loaded into GPS-enabled
vans for delivery.
Controlling the supply chain from seed to last-mile delivery gives
back2basics the distinctive advantage of being able to maintain
uniformity and consistency in taste, colour, texture, and finish of its
produce while reducing cycle time.
“Organic produce in India changes many hands, each adding their own
markup, ultimately making it prohibitively expensive for the consumer,
who often pays up to 200–300 per cent premium for it,” says Bhairavi.
This bootstrapped venture sells its produce for a little over input
cost.
In a country with low awareness of organic farming and a highly
unorganised fragmented organic food market, businesses like back2basics
help in educating farmers and consumers about sustainable farming and
healthy food. “We are at the cusp something wonderful,” says
Madhusudhan. He quotes an
Assocham study
that states raising awareness could boost the growth of India's organic
food market by more than 25 per cent annually to touch $1.36 billion by
2020. Back2basics occupies a unique position in this growth story with
its experience with both ends of the organic food spectrum – quality
production at scale and effective marketing to a growing, informed
customer base.
shankars farm. 
