Pune Inc: An Amazon-like platform for fruits and vegetables to bring farmers close to consumers

Mulyam’s solution was to directly buy all grades of fruits and vegetables from farmers and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs). The farmers, now dealing with a single entity that offers fair prices, get better returns on their produce, a market all over India and logistics and packaging assistance. The products are, then, delivered at a fast pace to wholesalers, retailers, exporters and other institutional buyers across the country, thus opening up distant markets for the products. It is the small, Tier-II and III wholesale buyers that Mulyam is especially targetting.

Platform of Value

At present, Mulyam has more of a transactional relationship with wholesalers and institutional buyers. In the next six months, it is going to launch a full-fledged B2B marketplace.

“We are trying to bring our capability to a level where we can scale. Once we operate on a scale of say one lakh or two lakh metric tons of fresh produce, we want to run the business as a platform that will have suppliers coming on the platform and buyers purchasing through us. This will enable farmers to sell their produce across the country in their brand and buyers across regions to access the produce,” says Kedari, emphasising that they want to create an FPO marketplace for market linkage.

The services will include value additions such as logistics and packaging platforms. “Once we introduce the platform, we will not take a trading cut but a service charge,” says Kedari. He says that buyers will get consistent supply, better quality and financing solutions. Farmers get a pan-India reach, help in procurement of packaging material, better logistics rates and prices across all the major and smaller markets in the country. “This will enable farmers to go beyond their current reach of 50-100 km radius that he sells. The best thing is that FPOs can create their brand and showcase across the country in wholesale markets through us,” says Kedari.