Keerthi Priya and her mother Odapalli Vijaya Laxmi hailed from Thonda village, Suryapet district in rural Telangana. They both have started their new business name “Nurture Fields” after they witnessed huge post-farm harvest wastage. After witnessing the losses, they both came up with an idea of Nurture Fields.
They both have started Nurture Fields Industries with an initial investment of Rs 4 lakh so as to understand the changing aspects of the business and authenticate the market for the product. The raw material was bought during the low demand-high supply season. This strategy aided them to cut the food wastage as most often farmers abandon the manufacture due to inaccessible market/unmanageable prices.
Nurture Fields provide a wide variety of dehydrated vegetables and fruits like mango, sapota (chiku), papaya, spinach, gongura, tomato, cabbage, etc. It is also designing fascinating FMCG products in ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook categories like soup mixes, juice mixes, curry mixes, etc. The firm of the mother and daughter duo is selling the product to both B2B and B2C customers across the country through a mix of offline and online channels.
Furthermore, Nurture Fields’ target division is environment-conscious urban shoppers between the ages of 25 and 40 who wish to make healthy living options for themselves and their families. Both mother and daughter Laxmi were also a part of Project Her&Now’s entrepreneurship support program in Hyderabad in 2020, which aided them to scale their business.
The mother and daughter are now on course to commence operations of their first formal manufacturing unit (factory) in Suryapet, which will have the ability to dehydrate at last 2.5 tonnes of vegetables and fruits per day, thus aiding them to scale up the business and to innovate with newer varieties of ready-to-cook and/or ready-to-eat food products.