Pictured (left to right): Gunalan Dhamodharan, Shreeja Ramasamy, Keerthi Ranjith, Deepak Rajmohan, Vijay Anand, Subramani Perumal, Shankar Subramaniam.
Would you please tell us about your team and why you are passionate about AgriTech?
Deepak Rajmohan, CEO, GreenPod Labs: We are a team of 14 professionals working towards minimizing food waste. The research and development team comprises several scientists with PhDs in Food Biotechnology and Food Technology with more than 20+ years of combined research experience. The operations team comprises engineers and Agribusiness management professionals with supply chain, operations, and manufacturing backgrounds
I stumbled upon a statistic that showed developing countries such as India lose about 40 percent of their fresh produce before it reaches the consumer. In developed countries, about 35 percent of loss happens after it reaches the consumer. Lack of infrastructure is a huge problem in developing countries that contributes to the losses. This was the motivation for me to develop solutions to solve this problem in India and other developing countries.
What inspired you to participate in the Milken-Motsepe Prize in AgriTech? What do you hope to gain from this experience?
I was excited about the opportunity to work with smallholder farmers and help increase their income. I’m looking forward to learning to understand the pain point of smallholder farmers in Uganda and Kenya. Also, I look forward to having the opportunity to participate in the Stanford Leadership course.
Would you briefly describe your concept and how it will increase economic value to farmers in Africa?
We have developed biotech-based packaging sachets that can extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. By reducing the post-harvest losses, we could help increase the economic value for smallholder farmers.
What do you think sets you apart from other teams in this competition?
It’s not just me, but my entire team is super committed and passionate about solving the food waste problem in developing countries. One of our critical criteria for hiring to be on our team is to be passionate about solving food waste. We believe this deep passion for the problem would set us apart from the other team in this competition.