The diverse climate of India ensures the availability of a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables. To provide fresh fruits and vegetables on time, a sustainable supply chain strategy and sophisticated technologies are required. Superplum has been striving towards this goal by using effective and efficient modern technologies to offer fresh and high-quality fruits to its neighbourhood customers.
Briefly tell us about the inception of the brand and the retail model the brand follows?
I have always been fascinated by Indian agriculture, given the potential and great quality of produce available at farms. In most countries, one can see the best quality fresh fruits available on display in stores. In India, retailers seem to find it easier to import fruit from thousands of miles away in good condition rather than locally grown fruits.
The biggest issue is that horticulture lacks a modern supply chain and modern information systems. This inspired me to focus on eradicating the ongoing agricultural concerns and thus launch Superplum. We started operations in a limited manner in February, just before Covid-19 hit India.
We follow an omnichannel approach and have built a hybrid method, which allows customers to spot and shop their fruits. In addition to purchasing Superplum fruits at neighbouring stores, customers can shop online as well on the Superplum website as well as Amazon.
How is Superplum bridging the gap between the farms and consumers with the help of technology?
The company aims to bridge the gap between the farms and consumers by digitising the fresh fruit industry. We strive to reimagine the whole agricultural supply chain by using modern technology, the latest agricultural know-how and pervasive use of software from the farm to the consumer.
Every aspect is captured, digitised, and analysed. We have developed a broad technology platform, FreshManager™, which assures that all fruits can be traced to the farm. The platform provides full transparency and allows users to monitor laboratory test reports and other farm and transport-related information.
It is specifically designed for Indian conditions and it enables the company’s quality control teams to track more than ten fruit parameters throughout the supply chain as well as fruit maturity throughout its lifecycle.
How has the ongoing wave of the pandemic influenced your business operations especially logistics and supply-chain management of fresh produce?
The fresh produce supply chain is an inherently complex and tough problem to address in a place like India. Working around Covid has been especially challenging for setting up and operating a business such as ours since our teams travel to the clusters to ensure procurement of quality products and the right handling of fruits from the harvesting stage. However, thanks to our experts and a wide network of local coordinators as well as farmers’ associations, we were able to find the right farms and warehouses and support for our travelling teams. We also have a small but extremely committed and driven team that took the hurdles of quarantine and other travel restrictions and delivered when it was most difficult.
How can government help to ease the ongoing agricultural issues for the growth of agri-tech startups?
While the government has taken measures to safeguard the interests of farmers and set up associations in most states, there is still scope for improvement when it comes to helping agri-tech startups. Since the Agri-tech sector uses modern technology for the storage and processing of fruit which consumes a considerable amount of electricity, the government can consider providing subsidies on electricity.
They can also help in the processing of short-term electricity connections for temporary processing centres. This sector generates employment at the local level, without demanding migration to urban cities increasing the living standard of the remote areas. Hence, it is necessary that the government should incentivise these efforts in the best possible way.
Is food wastage an important aspect of Superplum’s brand ideology? How does the brand encourage farmers to control food wastage?
The projected market size of fresh produce in 2021 is $300 billion. With the rise in consumption, the projected shortfall of fresh fruit in India will reach above 60mm tons annually by 2030. Lack of farm infrastructure, modern supply chain and cold chain transports leads to 25-30 per cent food wastage and overall low quality.
Superplum has designed a low-cost cold chain transport solution, the Fresherator™ that controls high-temperature, humidity and ethylene levels of fresh produce. The solution automatically adjusts ideal settings depending on the fruits that are being carried from point A to point B. This modern supply chain helps in increasing the life of fresh produce and thus reducing wastage.
At the farm level, it takes time to convince farmers to adopt new approaches, new logistics and new business models. At the distribution level, we often find that fruit retailers can be reluctant to try different packaging and new products. As products start seeing consumer acceptance though, these issues reduce.
How do you plan to expand your business operations?
Keeping Covid in mind, we are constantly recalibrating our expansion goals. We are currently present in two cities and intend to increase distribution to at least four more cities during the next year, starting with Mumbai and Kolkata. Simultaneously, we intend to raise the number of active farms from approximately 230 to 500. This will include expanding both our cluster-based procurement centres and our distribution capabilities at the same time.
We are also actively hiring experts and aim to double the size of our team. On the farm, we have already established a presence in 15 states throughout the country. We intend to broaden our farmer outreach. In addition, over the next few years, we hope to have our products available in the top 16 cities.
This year, we will start exporting some fruits and over time, plan to increase the volume and number of fruits.
(ThePrint ValueAd Initiative content is a paid for, sponsored article. Journalists of ThePrint are not involved in reporting or writing it.)
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