When even WHO doesn’t seek zero chemical traces, FirstAgro’s ultimate health food has people excited. Can it achieve scale with the speed its customers want it to?
Nameet MV mildly frets about the tomatoes lying in the beds on his farm. Mildly, because if these white, purple, chocolate and yellow tomatoes don’t reach the retail shelves or chefs’ kitchens in Bangalore, they would go for sun drying or seed making. The torrential rains, much more than what the region had experienced in previous years, had hit the Heirlooms, the San Marzanos, the Romas and 15 other varieties of tomatoes that Nameet grows on his farms. Many plants still have full bunches; the strawberry-red cherry tomatoes are luscious with just the right mix of sweet and tart.
In contrast, and true to their fiery nature, the pepper plants stand firm in nearby patches. Bishops Crown, the UFO-like green and red peppers, guard the corners. Like a gastro-masochist, Nameet introduces the chillies: “This is Bullet, grown commonly in the UK; this is Badmash—the green-purple chillies pointing up are more pungent than their downward pointing cousins. Don’t these Jasmine bouquets (off-white chillies in green leafy bunches) look classy?”
In dazzling colours and crazy shapes, the chillies look lovely. So does the 45-acre farm in Talkaad, 110 km from Bangalore and a popular scenic weekend getaway for city dwellers. Most of the patches in Nameet’s farm have not been tilled for several years. Nameet, his brother Naveen and cousin KN Prasad, who founded FirstAgro in 2010, look for near-virgin lands even though they are harder to till. But it’s the first step in growing zero-pesticide crops. In India, where crop production suffers from systemic overuse of chemicals, with pesticide levels ranging from 5 to 150 times higher than world standards, setting global benchmarks in pesticide-free horticulture is almost like setting a counterculture.
It hasn’t been easy. “It took us six crop cycles of experimentation, of 90 days each, to get farming methods and input proportions right,” says Prasad, who is chief operating officer. But the founders, who have invested nearly $2 million from friends and family money, are in no hurry. There was no “venture capital[ist] hanging like a sword over our head,” says Prasad. In its third year of operations, FirstAgro is shipping nearly 30 tonnes of vegetables and exotic greens every month to top retailers and fine dining places in Bangalore, including the two hip hotels that opened in the city in the last two months—Ritz Carlton and JW Marriott.
For most retailers the buck stops at regular red tomatoes and green lettuces. Now that they see varieties, there’s no pausing at Double Lola Rosa and Triple Lola Rosa (a type of purple lettuce) or Komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach) and Mizuna (Japanese mustard). Supply isn’t keeping pace with demand. Retailers say zero-pesticide produce is flying off the shelves.
In the startup world, this is an enviable situation to be in. But when you are FirstAgro and decide to go even beyond the World Health Organization standards of pesticide-free crops, scaling up is the biggest opportunity as well as the toughest challenge.
‘Short-termism’ is not what chief executive Naveen MV lives by. He’s looking at 10-15 years from now when FirstAgro would create a niche category in the country. The startup will close at Rs 6.8 crore in revenue in March 2014 and has ambitious plans to clock $75 million by 2018 through 16 agro clusters across the country. For the sons of the soil, the toil has just begun.
GERMINATION
The idea had its genesis in 2008 in San Francisco when Naveen and his younger brother Nameet got together. Naveen was then handling the Asia Pacific business of Hewlett-Packard; Nameet was a commercial pilot in Vancouver, Canada. Slowdown was squeezing Nameet’s flying time, and he had an entrepreneurial idea they could pursue. Flying over large green houses in Canada, he had fallen in love with horticulture. He often flew red-eye planes which gave him day hours to work with small local farmers. He collected agri knowledge and some farm wisdom too. (In Canada, even the smallest farm exceeds 100 acres.)
Naveen left the IT industry and Nameet gave up flying to start FirstAgro. Cousin KN Prasad, a supply chain professional with experience in various industries, joined them later. The trio brings complementary skills to the farm. In boots and shorts, Nameet looks like the tech-loving farmer he is. He even knows why his three dogs like Japanese cucumber more than the Indian varieties. Prasad, who comes from a farming family, is the manager on the ground. In jeans and flip-flops, he is as relaxed accosting stray visitors to the farm as handling the local power or water supply glitch.
The savviest among them is Naveen. Largely based in Japan, he runs an IT management consultancy there. He is now scouting for local farm opportunities to supply to the local market. “We don’t have export ambitions, but we plan to use FirstAgro expertise to serve some Asian markets, especially in the hospitality sector,” he says. He visits Bangalore and Talkaad every quarter but don’t mistake him for a roving, long-distance chief executive. His Excel sheets reflect precisely how many beds in how many patches grow what crops and when they are due for harvest. “If I make any changes here,” says younger brother Nameet, “he calls to inquire the next day.”
At JW Marriott, executive chef Surjan Singh Jolly, or Chef Jolly as he is popularly known on various TV shows including MasterChef India, says when he relocated from Renaissance in Mumbai to Bangalore, he missed his agri patch terribly. He isn’t complaining now. “In less than six hours the produce from the farm is in my kitchen. It also helps me plan my menus. If I plan for my next palm hearts [a baby cabbage dish] or if I want my candy beets, I can work with them,” he says.
(This story appears in the 29 November, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)