A conversation with Thirukumaran Nagarajan on his venture Ninjacart and safe food.
What happens when agriculture meets the right kind of technology? Ninjacart- India’s largest Agri marketing platform is here to show us just that. Member of the founding team Thirukumaran Nagarajan spoke to me about connecting the dots between farmers and consumers, and making safe food a priority for everyone.
The start
Founded by a team of five- Thirukumaran Nagarajan, Vasudevan C, Kartheeswaran KK, Sharath Babu L and Ashutosh V, Ninjacart brings farmers and retailers closer thereby making quality fruits and vegetables available to consumers.
Having crossed paths in their previous careers, the team connected over the need to start a venture which addresses some of the issues people face on a day to day basis. Ninjacart, Thirukumaran shared, has its genesis in a location-based information sharing app called SHOUT, which he created along with a few members of the team. While the app did not take off as expected, the team revisited the technology and tailored it to create the first prototype of Ninjacart- a hyperlocal grocery delivery app. “In two to three months we realized that if we have to improve margins, we need to work at the back end supply. We would receive complaints from our customers about the pricing and quality of the vegetables. To fix this issue, we visited the kiranas, and we saw that they had a huge problem in procuring fruits and vegetables amidst changing prices. As we dug deeper many issues faced by farmers and retailers surfaced and we decided to move away from being just a grocery delivery service,” he said.
Image Courtesy: Ninjacart
Being the Ninja, farmers need
Today Ninjacart directly intervenes the agricultural supply chain by procuring from farmers, giving them 20 % more revenue and selling it to retailers at a 5-10% lesser price. Along the way, team Ninjacart also makes the process easier for farmers by providing them with support where needed. “Farmers face a lot of issues in terms of getting the right price for their produce and having the right kind of support in reaching the market. Many don’t keep accounts, and while they should be getting say, 10,000 rupees for their vegetables, the final payment is only 9000 rupees, which sometimes takes 7-8 days to reach them. We also found that some are not able to weigh their vegetables and fruits accurately, which again has an impact on how much they get in return. We ensure that the correct weight is recorded, and farmers get the amount the very next day. Many farmers have to depend on someone to deliver the items from the farmland to the aggregation point, so we have started providing pick up services to address the same.”
Ninjacart currently works with 3500 farmers and over 1500 retail stores. On a daily basis, they process more than 150 tons of vegetables and fruits. They have 16 procurement points in Karnataka, 3 in Tamil Nadu and 2 in Andhra Pradesh. They recently started operations in Chennai and are aiming to establish themselves in Hyderabad by July 2018.
Image Courtesy: Ninjacart Facebook Page
Prioritising Safe Food
It looks like the team is set in its goals and are working towards them steadily. But Thirukumaran says this is just scratching the surface. “We want to help farmers, retailers and consumers, but we don’t want to stop there. The overall vision of Ninjacart is to make food safe for everyone.” I asked him what he meant by safe food, and he was quick to add- “When I say that the first thing people ask me is, are you going to get into organic? Currently, not everyone can afford organic food. We cannot have different food standards for different people. As a first step, we need to produce food with the right knowledge on using pesticides or other inputs for the soil. I am talking about MRL (Maximum Residue Limit) standard vegetables and fruits; wherein harvests are done after certain number of days ensuring that the residues are no longer present in levels harmful for consumption. We cannot jump from using pesticides to not using them at all. We need an incremental approach where we first build understanding and have more stringent methods of using them. We also need to build our soil and other resources to produce healthy food without these inputs. We have a long way to go. Our goal at Ninjacart is that once we become substantially big in controlling the supply chain, we will impose safety standards and make it feasible for farmers and retailers to follow them.”
Spending a lot of time with farmers and consumers, Thirukumaran weighed in on other issues like the wonky vegetable movement. He emphasised on the need for consumer education and said that the problem is far more prevalent than we can fathom. “We really need to think away from shiny and perfect looking vegetables and fruits. These are agricultural products and not factory made items. Farmers throw away the produce they know will not be accepted by the market. Tomatoes have to round and perfect. Ridge gourds have to be straight. We measure the length of cucumbers, and they have to be around 40mm. Currently, farmers destroy some of the smaller vegetables because they lose money trying to sell them. This scenario has to change.”
Image Courtesy: Ninjacart Facebook Page
On sustainable food
Thirukumaran says a sustainable food system is one in which everyone profits. “Farming should be profitable. Only then will future generations feel inclined to take up farming as a profession. The people selling our vegetables should also see profits and understand the value of safe food. For the consumer, it is about getting healthy food at an affordable price. Consumers should not get carried away by marketing tactics or the look and feel of the food. They should be able to get what is right.”
He adds that the future of agriculture lies in using data to predict demand patterns and give farmers the right information on what to grow and when to grow. But for all that, he says they need to be dealing with larger volumes. For now, Ninjacart has started working on a project to make MRL standard vegetables possible. Step by step, he adds, just like his vision for improving our food system, step by step.
