A mother-daughter duo from Thonda village in Suryapet district are not only solving the problem of providing nutritious food but are also helping farmers and the local community reap profits through their platform.
Keerthi Priya and her mother Odapalli Vijaya Laxmi started Nurture Fields which aims to reduce food wastage by working with marginal farmers. It offers a wide range of dehydrated vegetables and fruits like mango, chiku, papaya, spinach, gongura, tomato, cabbage, etc.
Being curious about farming since childhood and moved by the post-harvest wastage, Priya joined her mother to partner with farmers in five villages near Thonda village and has employed 30 local women for sun-drying vegetables and fruits. In the process, they are helping the farmers reduce post-harvest wastage and generating employment and livelihood for rural women.
The company sells the products to both B2B and B2C customers across the country through a mix of offline and online channels. ‘Nurture Fields’ target segment is environment-conscious urban consumers between the ages of 25 and 40 who want to make healthy life choices for themselves and their families.
The company is part of the Project Her&Now which is being implemented by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and in partnership with the Government of India’s Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE). In Telangana, the project is running in partnership with WEHub.
A B.Pharm graduate from BITS Pilani and MBA from IIM Calcutta, Priya worked in different private firms to gain industry experience. While she was in Bengaluru, her mother used to send her sun-dried tomatoes and this triggered the business idea. This simple idea led Keerthi to research on the benefits and scope of sun-dried fruits and vegetables.
In 2018, Keerthi quit her corporate job and returned to Telangana, filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of this new venture. She then made her first purchase — a solar dryer.
As she would soon learn, even with plenty of zeal, building a business was no easy task.
“The next few years were filled with trial and error. I began researching the domain of food preservation and worked with branding agencies in Mumbai to learn the intricacies of building a business. I even spent time with farmers in Telangana to understand the gaps in the supply chain,” she says.
In 2021, after gaining confidence and knowledge about the food preservation industry, the mother-daughter duo started Nurture Fields.
Keerthi says it’s not easy running an enterprise. “You have to be persistent and ride along. It’s important to build a supportive ecosystem to thrive and grow – be it friends or family, an incubator or an online community. I have observed an interesting thing in my journey, while there is inertia when you start something as a woman, people do warm up and feel it as their responsibility to support a woman who is trying to do something.”