As part of the investment, Lalit Jalan, India chairman of 3Lines, will join the company’s board of directors.
The company will use the funds to ramp up operations, increase manufacturing capacity and improve India’s agricultural food supply chain, which sees about $5 billion post-harvest wastage every year.
Bala Reddy, the founder and CEO of Our Food, said the majority of the value gained from pre-processing, reducing post-harvest wastage and supply chain disintermediation is shared between the franchise operator and the farmer that supplies the unprocessed harvest.
“To bring food processing closer to the farm is the mission Our Food team has worked on tirelessly over the past five years and has fine-tuned the business model to develop innovative ideas in manufacturing, food processing operations, financing, and B2B/B2C sales,” Reddy said.
“This capital infusion will help us boost our capacity to over 6,000 operational franchises, gives us the right ammunition to significantly disrupt the food processing industry and position us for an IPO in 2024,” he added.
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The Hyderabad-based company has a presence in 13 states in India, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Karnataka. It has processing units for more than 15 crops, including pulses, cereals, spices and groundnut, and plans to expand its crop portfolio.
Over 1,700 rural entrepreneurs have licensed Our Food Farmer franchises, each operating a regional crop-specific processing unit that procures and processes raw material from over a hundred farmers from nearby villages. Each farmer franchisee is powered by an end-to-end tech-enabled solution, starting with the establishment of a single mini food processing unit, access to equipment financing, training in processing, and marketing of the processed output.
“Our Food value proposition is a triple play for the rural youth who operate franchises, for farmers who can increase their income through direct supply, and for the business buyers who can offer higher quality to their consumers,” said Jalan. “Our Food has seen growth of over 100x in its decentralised processing over the past two years, signaling a disruptive trend in mini food processing,” Jalan added.
