Business

Truly Desi – Desi dairy & organic products for a healthier tomorrow

A Pune-based dairy and grocery start-up offering a large variety of desi dairy products, certified organic grocery, fruits, and vegetables. Truly Desi is a mission-driven brand with the objective of the welfare of farmers from rural India and connecting them directly with the customers to sell their produce at a reasonable price and make them economically strong. 

1 ) Please tell us about your experience as a founder of Truly Desi?
Ans: The overall experience has been excellent. Of course, it’s an entrepreneurial journey, so we have also seen a lot of ups and downs in the journey. It seems reasonable, but it isn’t easy when you join the group. We learn new things every day and come up with new challenges that we deal with solutions, rearrangements, and new strategies. As founders, we started with different roles that involved a lot of multitasking. If you’re in the first generation of a startup business, whatever comes in front of you becomes a role. So, we have to do our best to go in whatever we do and balance business and family life. So, it has been an incredible journey, and we look forward to more such good times in the future.

2) How do you develop this idea of offering daily products?

Ans: Truly Desi was started by Rupali Kakade, Founder and MD, and Mohit Rathod, Co-founder, and CEO as an initiative to provide organic products to everyone. It was in 2016 when Rupali noticed her daughter falling ill frequently. After undergoing numerous tests, she found out that her daughter’s illness and allergies were due to the adulterated milk and dairy products she was consuming. As a solution to this, Rupali and her husband decided to bring a few Lal Kandhar cows to their farm and consume A2 milk from those cows. Along with this, they started distributing the milk to their family and friends and the idea of Truly Desi was born from here. Starting with just a few cows, Truly Desi has now over 100 cows on their farm. Now, Truly Desiy delivers its products as produced, without any alterations, and also uses high-quality packaging so that there is no external adulteration as well.

3) What challenges did you face during the pandemic? How did you manage to grow despite that? Any challenges you faced from the customer’s side?

Ans: One of the significant challenges we faced during the first phase or the first wave of the pandemic was the delivery of the products because, at that time, the rules and guidelines were stringent, and there was fear in the minds of people while ordering anything from outside. Along with this, there was a significant workforce crunch owing to the fear of getting infected. Gradually with the right kind of communication and assurance, we could smoothen the supply chain. However, we were lucky to have our customers’ support during the pandemic as we did not miss a single delivery throughout this phase.

4) What new products and services are Truly Desi aiming to offer?

Ans: We currently have a pilot in process for fruits and vegetables. We’re trying to connect to farmers around Pune who are interested in organic farming and are already into organic agriculture. Another thing is that we want to come up with groceries and focus more on in-brand products. We are also working towards setting up a franchisee of Truly Desi. Along with this, we will also be adding a range of new products like shrikhand, ice creams, and more, based on the concept of low fat-high protein.

5) What are Truly Desi’s plans for diversification?

Ans: We have decided on a long-term plan for Truly Desi. We will soon start converting biogas into CNG and then selling it to the Government. This is one of the diversified areas which we’re looking at. Once the biogas is set up and the chain is in process, we will concentrate on fertilizers and pesticides. With this, we will be manufacturing organic fertilizers and pesticides, giving them to farmers, and completing the entire ecosystem. So, these are the things where we are thinking of diversifying. The other plan is to enter the superfoods industry. Here, we are trying to get in touch with brands already working on superfoods and collaborate with them in any way possible. So, we are exploring this segment right now and don’t want to get involved in it without any research or thorough testing.

Truly Desi products are available on our website and the Truly desi daily app. We are also on Amazon, Bigbasket, Nature’s Basket, Dunzo, YouCare Lifestyle, and Dorabjee’s, amongst other platforms. We are currently bootstrapped and are looking to raise INR 8-10 Crore in the next few months. In the long-term, our objective is to get into agro-tourism and traceability, where all our products will have a QR code. Customers can scan the QR code and receive all the details about the farm, the health and diet of the cows, their mental health, and details about all other products available to them.

6) What is your take on the different policies and schemes amended for farmers by the Indian Government?

Ans: The Government these days wants to create more farmer producer companies like ourselves. Through this, we are trying to create an ecosystem where no middlemen are involved. We hope that with the Government’s help shortly, we can empower the farmers to directly access the customers, which will help them reduce the margins of the intermediaries and increase their profitability.

This article is drafted by Prittle Prattle News in the form of an Interview.
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