Innovation

EarthPoorna is a company that aims at making farming more sustainable and creating market demand for traditional crops by making healthy food products. The service consists of delivering handmade and healthy food products, especially laddu to pan India to take care of the mid-meal hunger pangs of the consumers. The other readymade snacking items available in the market does not always offer the healthiest options following what a person should consume to better their lifestyle. The company also strives to improve farmers’ livelihood by connecting the local farmers with the health-conscious urban population, it hopes to contribute to solving the twin problem of poor health and rural underdevelopment. They also decided to go for plastic-free packaging for their product deliveries. It took the company 6 months to come up with the product after thorough research and trials because making laddus with powdered sugar is easy but the company decided to use jaggery which was very tricky to work with. The company took help from an Ayurveda expert to finalize the recipe for the first product i.e., Ragi Laddus.

The ingredients the company uses are organic, free of pesticides and fertilizers, and sourced directly from farms eliminating middlemen. The various variety of laddus is Ragi Laddu, Multigrain Laddu, Vegan Laddu, no sugar no jaggery laddu and many more to be added. The company also employs local farm women for production to promote women’s employment and give opportunities to those who have very less exposure. The company produces in accordance with make-to-order and doesn’t believe in storing the product. “Because it is Laddus and I don’t like to prepare laddus and store it in freeze or warehouse and then ship it to customers after 10-15 days. We want to deliver it fresh so we make it as per orders and in batches of around 200-300 boxes in a day and get the delivery done in 5-6 days pan India”, said Sucheta, founder of EarthPoorna.

"Consumers can order the products directly from social media platforms or e-marketplaces. Their products are enjoyed by all age group people right from children to old age and also makes for a unique gifting option. So that is a switch you can say that people are accepting and thinking towards making laddus as a corporate gifting option as well. Around 40% of customers are repeat customers."

Inspiration

The main inspiration for Ms. Sucheta was the lack of a nutritious diet after moving to a metro city and being a farmer's daughter, she has that desire to do something connected to food.

It all began when Ms. Sucheta moved out of her native village where they used to have nutritious love filled diets from their mother, she realized that there is a huge difference between diet patterns in villages and cities. People are letting go of the large benefits that traditional crops provide. So to curb this gap, Ms. Sucheta introduced various nutrition-loaded food items like millet ladoos and ragi-based ladoos.

And along with this, she was inspired to do something about the upliftment of local farmers who produced in small quantities and were not able to sell their produce in large mandis at a good rate due to long distances.

All of this inspired Ms. Sucheta to come up with something that could provide daily nutrition and help the farmers. And that’s how EarthPoorna was born.

Overall impact

The positive response from farmers in Maharashtra has opened up new avenues for EarthPoorna in other states like Goa. Here, there is the possibility of more farmers switching to Ragi, millet, or other natural farming options. A Millet Mission is being planned in the state in collaboration with the Government of Goa, especially to have barren land used for paddy farming for six months to full-time natural farming.

EarthPoorna wants to make an impact on the agricultural produce and businesses run by farmers.

Ms. Sucheta also wants to make an impact on the lifestyle of people by including more millet-based meals in their diet.

Business benefit

Innovation plays a significant role in the overall business. It has eliminated the middle man and set the proper channel for procuring organically grown raw material directly from farmers, processing it in traditional ways, and providing healthy food products now to its consumers.

The company is selling approximately 2500 ragi ladoos per month since it gained popularity. It is also getting more and more farmers on board with them allowing them to deliver orders in new territories like New Delhi. It is now expanding its product portfolio to give more choices to customers as well.

Social and environmental benefit

EarthPoorna believes in organic farming and not using any chemicals in growing its crops. This not only retains soil nutrition but continuous crop production is avoiding soil erosion as well.

Ms. Sucheta emphasized “If we use traditional crops or seasonal crops, it helps to maintain biodiversity. Planting other non-native plants will harm the existing biodiversity which will be a long-lasting negative impact that we wish to avoid.”

Social impact:

Older generations have had the good fortune of growing up with access to nutritious meals and options but the same cannot be said for the current generation. Today’s diet consists of crops that are not very beneficial for health and are promoting illnesses since food is at the core of health and well-being. EarthPoorna, hence, wants to make an impact and encourage a shift back to more organic and health-positive food options. Ms. Sucheta mentioned how they plan to have tie-ups with schools to promote millet-based snacks to further progress their goal.

All the farmers associated with Earth Poorna follow a completely organic way of growing, and no chemicals are used and thus helping in sustainable food production systems and implementing resilient agriculture practices.

Interview

Sucheta Bhandare, Founder