SHREEKANGAN FOOD PARK - Enriching the Farmers' Lives

By BWA Envoy
June 24, 2022
3 Minutes Read

Agriculture, the backbone of the Indian economy, is the largest source of livelihood in rural India. Over 80% of the farmers are small and marginal with small land holdings. Despite being a leader in the production of various commodities, the Agricultural sector faces high wastage due to a lack of mechanization and poor storage infrastructure post-harvest. This has prevented farmers from optimizing their agricultural output resulting in significantly lower incomes. As a part of the Government’s agenda of doubling farmers' income, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries is mandated to reduce post-harvest losses and enhance Food Processing levels in India.

Shreekangan Food Park (@Shreekangan) is a partnership firm established in 2018 by philanthropists Subhash Kumar Ishwar (aka Kangan) and Rahul Sehgal. It is conceived as an integrated cold storage facility targeted to improve the fruits and vegetables supply chain in Begusarai and nearby districts of Bihar.

The state-of-the-art infrastructure includes a freezer, dry warehouse, ripening chamber, cold storage, precooling chamber, integrated packhouse, and food testing laboratories to increase the shelf life and maintain the quality of raw materials.

One of the obstacles Indian farmers faces in vending their produce is storing and dispatching it at the right time. Farmers face difficulty locating cold storage units near their farms. They lack access to a proper cold supply chain to supply their products from farm to market in accepted conditions within a stipulated time frame.

The Bihar-based cold-chain start-up understands the issues that farmers face daily. Shreekangan aims to de-risk the producers against post-harvest spoilage and bridge the gaps in the food supply chain of Bihar.

Shreekangan plans to take care of the crop transition from farms to consumers. The operational method at the cold chain storage involves several steps before it reaches the final consumer: farm collection, precooling, minimal processing, Individual Quick Freezing (IQF), cold storage, whole seller market, and retailers. The firm is also planning to procure raw materials like banana, mango, guava, litchi, lemon, potato, onion, tomato, brinjal, okra, green peas, etc. from the nearby districts.

As Kangan puts it, “God above has created this paradise on earth, and the farmers are the caretakers of this paradise. Cold storage solutions like Shreekangan are essential for these farmers as they can prolong the shelf life of fresh goods. It is investments like these that will enrich the lives of the farmers”.