If food waste was a country, it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China. And, the most exploited one due to food waste are small farmers who doesn’t get the price that they deserve.
We thoroughly worked on more than 10 models to increase the income of small farmers by reducing their food surplus waste. And, most of the ideas are feasible only on large scale for big farmers. But, affordable and DIY portable solar dehydrator came out to be the most profitable business model to merge the immense gap of food waste and low small farmers income. In solar dehydrator, we convert their food surplus which otherwise thrown away due to short-coming in size or low market prices, into premium snacks like dried mango, dried pineapple, dried grapes and other ready to eat products with huge market potential.
As we can see, people are eating out often, looking for more healthy and convenient food, ready to eat snacks and products comes on top and its market was huge of 0.5 trillion USD in 2022. As said, Nothing is more powerful than the ideas whose time has come. It’s time for small farmers to start processing their produce instead of selling at low prices to the market and earn better income with the huge market potential products.
In Raheja Solar Food Processing, we are creating an ecosystem where farmers can earn a better income, reduce their post harvest losses and provide better livelihood to their family. We do so, by not just providing our most affordable and DIY portable solar dryer, but by also providing solar drying techniques training and feedback using our software and also creating market support with the buyback and paying them upfront for their processed products. Since our start 3 years back, we have created the highest infrastructure of solar food processing at farm itself of saving and preserving 450MT of produce every month using our 3000 system while uplifting 30000 farmers. Further processing, we aggregate the products from our partner facility and sell them further to top FMCG brands like chaayos, urban platter and happilo.
For more info, use www.rsfp.in
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Just took a glimpse of your website https://rsfp.in/
Had a few questions to ask:
- How does the solar dehydrator work, and what are the key components of the system?
- What is the energy efficiency of solar dehydrators, and how do they compare to other types of dehydrators in terms of energy consumption?
- Can you provide specific examples of successful businesses or projects using solar dehydrators to create premium snacks?
- What is the typical shelf life of the dried products, and how does it compare to traditionally dehydrated or fresh produce?
- Are there any specific regulations or standards that need to be met when using solar dehydrators for commercial food production?
- What is the initial investment required to set up a solar dehydrator system, and what are the ongoing operational costs?
- To help us in understanding the entire supply chain process of using solar dehydrators in a specific location, could you please explain the end-to-end supply chain for a facility you have in Karnataka and other states? Considering factors such as sourcing the raw materials, processing, distribution, and retail?
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- How does the solar dehydrator work, and what are the key components of the system?
Raheja Solar Dryer works on the principle of greenhouse effect, in which solar radiation gets trapped inside the closed chamber. It has two section: one is collector area, where heat is generated using black floor and second is drying area, where fresh products are kept to dry. The trapped radiation produces heated air in collector which is then supplied over fresh products using a constant air supply from fan results in vaporisation of moisture and then moisturised air goes out from other side of tunnel. Solar Dryer is self sustainable model, it doesn’t require any supply of electricity.
- What is the energy efficiency of solar dehydrators, and how do they compare to other types of dehydrators in terms of energy consumption?
The efficiency of our solar dryer is trapping 200 W per sq m of solar radiation coming on the solar dryer. And, we are the only company in India who got its solar dryer tested by ICAR, Department of Post Harvest Management.
- Can you provide specific examples of successful businesses or projects using solar dehydrators to create premium snacks?
There are lot of FPOs and social entrepreneur who have excelled their business using our solar dryer. Few of them are shared below:
Raheja Solar Food Processing on LinkedIn: Solar dryer technology proved a boon for tribal women farmers A 22-year-old accountant dedicatedly helping small-marginal farmers.
- What is the typical shelf life of the dried products, and how does it compare to traditionally dehydrated or fresh produce?
Typical shelf life of the dried products are more than a year and if you put them in cold storage, it can be preserved for 3 years.
Open sun dried products, didn’t last more than 3 months, bcoz of pollutants and insect in the open sun.
- What is the initial investment required to set up a solar dehydrator system, and what are the ongoing operational costs?
The initial investment required to setup solar dehydrator starts with Rs. 25,000. And their is no operational cost required, as the system is self-sustainable running using solar energy.
- Please help us in understanding the entire supply chain process of using solar dehydrators in a specific location. Could you please explain the end-to-end supply chain for a solar dehydrator facility you have in Karnataka and other states? Considering factors such as sourcing the raw materials, processing, distribution, and retail?
As soon somewhere order our solar dehydrator, our team dispatch the system in couple of days after quality check and packaging. Once the system reach to customer farm, we provide training manual and depending on type of solar dehydrator, our team comes for training and software training.
The customer start using our system as per our training software and use solar dehydrator to dehydrate their produce. Post dehydration, we do buyback the dried products of our customer and pay them upfront. After buyback, we aggregate from different customers and sell in food industry with our basic fixed margin. The maximum margin on the products goes to our the farmers.
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This is not a comment on your solution but a different context. 
As you rightly pointed out In India most of the farmers are small farmers - 93% of landholding is below 1 acre. The farmers and farming operating agricultural processes in farmland less than 5 acres are called marginal farms/farmers - and marginal farming has been super inefficient. This means India has 95% marginal farms/farmers.
In India, Average Farmer’s household’s income is INR 10,218, however only INR 3798 comes from farming and the rest comes from other sources - wedges, Land Leasing, Non-farm business etc.
The real question comes out should we as a nation promote marginal farming?
Let’s say, we should in that case the solution must increase the income from farming by a minimum of 75% to 100. (Do we have some data on this?)
I wrote an essay on this topic last year: https://www.sumanjha.com/post/here-is-what-most-of-us-are-missing-about-the-future-of-india-s-farming-and-agritech-scenario
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Hello Suman ji,
You have taken out very important point, it is a disadvantage for the small farmers to own small land. But I recently did some study in the developed nation large farm and what are the limitation that they have and how can small farmers from developing nation like India can leverage them.
The biggest asset that our small farmers has is to grow premium crops like herbs and perishable fruits, which you can grow on large farms, as it does require human labour intervention, which they can’t afford and most of the times. They don’t have manual people to harvest and take care of farm.
Herbs and Fruits also come with huge margin and if we leverage technology like solar drying or brand market linkage who use those products, it will give small farmers huge leverage in margin to earn 5 times more earning from the same land. And, that’s where we are promoting products which has huge demand in dried market and has premium price like sun dried tomato, dried mint, lemon, oregano and moringa.
Our women farmers success stories interview
ASHIVINI
Location: KUCCHUPUDI village, Vijaywada district, Andhra Pradesh.
A housewife with 2 kids and average income that husband earned of 15000/- at the rate of 500/- on a daily wage work.
Her family owns a rented land on which they grow crops that feed their own family.
It was very difficult for her to procure the basic requirements of her family.
As Ashvini joined Harivillu FPO, a micro-enterpreneur working with Raheja Solar Food Processing she is getting a steady income of 8000/- per month that is helping her in getting rid of the small issues she was facing daily.
Ashvini quotes, ‘‘ Me and my family are very happy and grateful to Raheja Solar Food Processing to introduce a method of processing and marketing our produce at a added rate while retaining the natural essence of our produce. ’’
P. KUMARI GOMANGO
Location: Sindhiba Village, Rayagada District, Odissa
A small scale farmer producing Pineapples on her farm with 6 members in her family.
P. kumari got an average income of Rs. 4000-5000 per month by selling the Pineapples in the market.
She also stated that 15-25% of the produce is damaged in harvesting and transportation.
As a processing unit of Raheja Solar Food Processing is installed in her village, she is able to get a steady income of Rs. 12000 per month that is a boost of about 50% of her regular income.
P. Kumari quoted, ‘ It means a lot to me that I am engaged in this work. It is helping me with processing my farm produce and increasing its market price as well as I am getting a source of regular income that is supporting my family in every way. In addition to this I am able to prevent the harvest losses also.’’
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@Varun15 just tasted some of the samples that you sent us. It is nice. How do the macros of this look like? Calories, Carbs, Proteins, etc?
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Thank you so much @NithinKamath for your kind words. As we are processing all the products at farm itself, where they gain the natural sugar at farm level, it does have good calories. Moreover, using solar technology for dehydrating at low temperature and dehydrating it slowly like a slow cooked food, actually helps us to retain the natural vitamins, proteins and minerals. I am sharing the nutritional report for reference.
Got it.
Do you have a sense of how much? Approximately how much %?
What do you sell these at? What are your margins like, and how much goes back to the farmer? If you are okay sharing it here, otherwise I can ask @Sagar_Gudekote to have a word with you on this.
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@Varun15 Ji, I have been thinking to create a new topic - The Problem of excess agricultural output production
In fact, I created this doc last month: The Problem of excess agricultural output production (We need to post this on Grove, tomorrow) - Google Docs and missed posting here.
https://twitter.com/ramanmann1974/status/1659251815437959169
What are your thoughts? Can we solve this problem using your solution?
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@NithinKamath Anyway if you are processing any product at some temperature, you do lose nutrients proportionally to the temperature. But as we are processing at 60 C, we do lose 10-15 % only, unlike 50-60 % at higher temperature ( more than 150 C ).
Our margins on the dried products are constant around 25 % ( to keep inventory, post processing, packaging and sterilization), rest all the money goes back upfront of purchase. The same farmer who used to earn INR 8,000 per ton for their excess produce, can now earn INR 25,000 per ton.
We have very transparent supply chain, on sharing the impact just like fairtrade.
Sounds useful! @Suman_Jile I am happy to be part of it.
No, no I am not doing anything. Do you think, your solution can be used to solve the above problem - that I shared?
