Smt Aradhna Painuly: Winner of the 2025 Great Companies International Women Entrepreneur Award

Name: Smt Aradhna Painuly

Business Name: Himalayan fresh juice private Limited

Location: Dehradun , India

Category: Agribusiness & Food Processing

Website: www.mountainlove.in

Company Detail:

Although India is positioning itself as a worldwide leading economic power, it is still home to one-third of the world’s poorest people, concentrated mostly in its rural areas. The growth potential of rural India, however, is enormous with an increasing concern about food security and increasing food prices. The new approach could well capitalize on the immense potential of rural India and break through the inefficiencies of the current rural production-trade relations, which need a substantial investment in infrastructure and technology.

The project with apple-growing farmers was started with the intention to set into motion a self-perpetuating model to assist small-scale apple-growing farmers in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh states of India. To do so, the social investor SHGW (a Netherlands-based private foundation), Fresh Food Technology (FFT, a Dutch private company), and SJS (an Indian NGO based in Rishikesh) started with the farmers, to have them organized in trusts, which would become their legal business partners in the new business entity called farmer joint venture companies. Subsequently, joint venture companies were formed for value addition at the primary level (sorting, grading, packing, and pre-cooling at the orchard level) and later also at the secondary level (for long-term storage of premium apples, for off-season sales, as well as for juice processing of inferior quality apples).

These joint venture companies are collectively owned by the investor, the private sector partner, and the farmer trusts. Special provisions are made in the article of associations, to ensure that:

• The investments and provisions (loans) for working capital are to be fully repaid to the investor, from the profit that the company makes.

• The farmer trusts have full economic rights to the additional income that the company is able to generate, which is paid to them proportionally on the basis of supplies either as a premium or shares in the joint venture companies.

• The joint venture companies are sufficiently capitalized for their long-term survival and expansion.

Unique Selling Proposition or Competitive Advantage:

A partnership model has been demonstrated in Uttarakhand, and now the company is moving up to ‘Partnering for Rural Prosperity’ by partnering with small and marginal farm collectives and investors. It was started as an idea by a family foundation in the Netherlands. The point is that if investment is provided to small growers, they can move up in the value chain of agri-producers. On one hand, they can earn more through their produce and on the other hand, the supply system can be improved.

Once this partnership model started, apple farmers asked for much higher prices from the collectives than the prevailing market prices. So there are difficulties in this model: one, how should the market scenario be explained to growers. Two, if these collectives are formed, how can they bring technologies and investment for creating the value chain, from collection to grading, storage, distribution, etc.

Then the farmers were organized with one producer for getting produce, and enough investment was secured based on the feasibility of the chain by partnering with a foundation for investment. The third partner is the market, where a good business partner is needed, who can form the joint venture company. Only if there is a company that is involved in the value addition business, can professionals be found to work for them.

Businesses are being sought as third partners. In such a system, NGOs and corporations can play a big role. Because all three partners - businesses and investors, investors and collectives, and collectives and businesses - are competitors amongst themselves, organizers are also required for nurturing these partnerships.

The initiative started in 2007 in Uttarakhand. All the companies were formed with two shareholders: one is the farmers’ collectives of more than 500 farmers organized in a trust, and the second shareholder is the investor. Whenever the company makes sufficient profit, the investor’s money is repaid on a simple business principle and proportionately the ownership is transferred to the farmers’ trust. At the end of the cycle, when the investment is repaid fully, the farmers’ trust becomes the full owner. These are slightly different from cooperatives as farmer collectives are shareholders in a corporate company. But this company is managed by professionals, who are in agri-business, who understand market dynamics, profitability, and the risk of the company.

A business-driven company is being created as a joint venture between farmer collectives and investors. The investor is asked to support these collectives or initiatives through a mix of loan and grant support. For organizing small producers, giving them enough training and skills, and arranging the right professionals for this company, grant support is needed. For the company, it should be a purely loan-based investment to create infrastructure. So for this initial investment, the regular business subsidies from the government or the public fund can be sought by the company, not by the shareholders, either the farmers’ collectives or the investors. In that way, these collectives can access the business support of public funds; business as usual, not as a subsidy or a loan waiver. Then they should not be dependent on public money for moving up the value chain.

So far, the benefits are that these small farmers somehow improve their incomes comparatively with the prevailing market prices at the time because they have the capacity now to hold the produce.

Challenges Faced During the Journey:

Due to its biosphere, the Himalayan region in South Asia is blessed with unique, healthy, and organically grown fresh as well as dry products, such as fruits, vegetables, special grains, spices, herbs, and medicinal plants. These precious (and often rare) products are in high demand, both nationally and internationally. However, farmers are not able to optimally benefit from this situation for several interrelated reasons:

• Slow delivery to consumers

• Absence of infrastructure

• Absence of a professional value chain

• Improper handling affects quality

• Absence of technical assistance

• Dependency on intermediaries

• Absence of farmers’ organizations

Advice for Women Entrepreneurs:

Apple Project aims to increase and strengthen the bargaining capacity of small apple farmers in India and to increase their income level substantially, by:

• Organising: Creating formal farmer organizations that will jointly handle, sell, and/or process their apples.

• Providing: Providing these farmer organizations with appropriate financial means and equipment to allow them to collect, sort, pack, pre-cool, and handle the apples in a professional manner.

• Marketing: Arranging that premium apples can be sold to long-term storage, whereas medium-grade apples go directly to the market, and inferior grades (and other fruits) are used for producing juice.

• Owning: Using the profits generated through the legally registered companies to make premium payments to the supplying farmer groups; repay the investors in the companies; gradually transfer the full economic ownership of the companies to the farmers.

The main socio-political purpose of this intervention is essentially to change the local power balance in the apple value chain in favor of small and marginal apple farmers.