Tamil Nadu farms to tables abroad: A business so ‘cool’

TIRUPATTUR: Foodies may agree that a sumptuous meal is never complete without a plate of green salad.

And what occupies a major part of the salad plate than the neatly-cut juicy, round-shaped cucumber! Well, that’s not the juicy part of the story.

This humble vegetable has just helped a Tamil Nadu exports company make an annual turnover of Rs 65 crore.

Freshara Picklz Exports, a company situated at Velakkalnatham, a tiny village in Tirupattur district, has been exporting processed cucumber to clients located in about 35 countries.

Preserved gherkin, and processed baby cucumber are the major items that they export.

An overview at their business shows they have been exporting close to 800 containers of the products, weighing about 13,000 tonnes, every year to overseas clients.

“We enter into an agreement with farmers from Tirupattur, Salem and Dharmapuri districts, and provide them with seeds and inputs,” says Yusuf, manager of Freshara Picklz Exports.

The idea to explore the hardly-tapped potential of cucumber exports struck Junaid Ahmed, when his father prodded him to look for a career outside the construction sector.

“I zeroed in on this business after a lot of research,” says Junaid, the managing director of the company. He started the firm in 2014-15, with an investment of  Rs 5 crore.

The company had won the best exports firm award in 2017-18.