Agrizy, a business-to-business platform in the agri-processing sector, is looking to expand “aggressively”, particularly its international business, its co-founder and CEO Vicky Dodani said.
It is for this reason that the start-up, founded in September 2021, has set up a state-of-the-art research and development laboratory in Bengaluru recently, he told businessline in an online interaction.
“The very first reason (to set up the R&D lab) was we wanted to go more aggressive in the business. You know expansion is one of the things that we are looking at especially in international business That’s where we are growing,” said Dodani.
Agrizy, which connects micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), that are into agri-food processing, with large brands through its electronic platform, ensures supplies to at least 14 countries, besides India.
Working in 4 sectors
“We have just started scratching the surface. So the beginning has already happened. We are expecting this to grow multifold over the next 3-4 years,” said the company’s co-founder and CEO..
Agrizy co-founder and CEO Vicky Dodani
Agrizy, which helps MSMEs to utilise their capacity by getting orders from large brand companies that sell food products, works in processed fruits and vegetables, spices, edible nuts and extracts.
In the fruits and vegetables sector, hardly 2.5 per cent gets processed and this results in wastage of 20 per cent of their production. “We do mango pulp, tomato pulp, frozen peas, sweet corn, etc. We also do dehydrated products such as onions to increase their shelf life,” said Dodani.
Some of these go to big ketchup, masala, spices or pickle manufacturers. In the spices category, Agrizy works from the farm level, making purchases and getting them processed by the MSMEs. It handles products such as chilli, turmeric, cumin and cardamom among others.
Ensuring quality
In edible nuts, Agrizy procures products such as makahana, cashews and almonds and gets them processed by MSMEs on “job contracts” for large brands and retail chains. It also converts spices such as turmeric into curcumin extracts.
These suites of products increase the capacity utilisation of MSME food processors. “Overall, we are today working with about 500 suppliers. Some of them began working early and we have helped to increase their capacity utilisation by 50 per cent. We work with more than 200 brands both in domestic and international markets,” the company’s co-founder and CEO said.
On how the company ensures quality of produce such as mango pulp and conform to Europea quality, Dodani said it uses three “levers” to ensure this. First, the firm is running a farm-level engagement programme.
“For example, in chilli, we run the Integrated Pesticide Management programme. We are training our farmers. Our team goes and trains farmers on the best practices. We have developed a package of practice documents on the dos and don’ts,” he said.
Traceability
Agrizy uses multiple IoT devices to ensure the end product will meet European standards. It also helps processors get plant certifications such as AIN or BRC for quality and food safety.
The third level is technology, particularly traceability. “Right from farmers to processing and the entire logistics, everything is automated on our tech platform. So we give the interfaces of these platforms to our customers, our processors, they can track each and everything,” he said.
Within the country, the company, which has 130 staff on its rolls, operates in the same clusters where the produce is grown, harvested and processed. In the case of chilli, for example, the firm engages MSMEs which have set up production facilities in the clusters in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka – the major growers.
Agrizy handles 8,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetables annually. To ensure constant supply, it procures tomato during the harvest season and preserves the paste in an aspetic bag. This preserves the nutrients and the product can remain in tact at ambient room temperature for 18-24 months.
Continuing momentum
This can then be used in households, hotels, restaurants, catering. This not only prevents wastage but also ensures prices do not spike significantly, Dodani said, adding that dehydrated onion finds better use in the US and other developed markets.
However, efforts are required to educate the people on these products, he said. Such efforts will also make the supply chain resilient.
Agrizy, which raised close to $10 million in August 2024, is utilising a part of it for its Bengaluru R& D centre.
Besides its plans to expand its business, the company plans to continue its momentum in coming with products via technology. It has put in more efforts, people and team capability for this.
Fintech
Agrizy is attempt to organise the entire processing sector with payment history and transactions so that banks and non-banking finance corporations can provide loans. It is trying to build processing capabilities too through its R&D centre to come up with new products, particularly fintech, for its customers.
For this, Agrizy has onboarded some of the senior scientists with ample experience in overall food processing and nutraceuticals. Since the company works without any intermediaries with farmers and the processors, the former gets better realisation. Besides, it also provides payment assurance, he said.
