Achiever's Success Story
Food Parks: "Building the Future of Agri – Food Supply Chain"
The title says it all about Ms. Pooja N who under the tutelage of her Food visionary father Dr. M Narayanswamy Founder of Akshaya Food Park Limited (AFPL) & Jewargi Agro Food Park Limited(JAFPL), being a pioneer in the Agri-Food Infrastructure sector in India. After her education, she was entrusted with the responsibility of developing a healthy & holistic lifestyle through the promotion of good food through organized supply chain development of Food Parks. She also took up the responsibilities of rural entrepreneurship development and skills development, as corporate social responsibility and assumed the role as a Director in the Food Parks in 2004.
Those were the early days of Foods Parks in the country and being a Govt partnered project every step had to clear by the relevant authorities. The team at AFPL & JAFPL successfully completed the projects through novel initiatives of boosting Food Processing in India through MSMEs under the cluster-based development model and also keeping in mind the health needs of the end consumer. This achievement was followed up by spearheading of the Farm to Fork model which required meticulous planning of all the processes of the Food Supply chain activity in Food parks starting from procurement from farmers to grading, processing, warehousing, storage, packaging, and logistic support, again depending upon the needs of every customer.
The Vision Strategy envisaged by the team were :
*To enable efficient growth of the food processing sector by producing safe and quality food products.
*To catalyze the growth of organic foods, medicinal and herbal products and nutraceutical, which has business potential and beneficial to society.
*To facilitate Production and processing of Quality and Safe food products which are hygienically grown and processed.
*To create an environment of a win-win situation for farmers, processors, marketers, and consumers across the food supply chain
*To make the food processing sector globally competitive by the adoption of large scale integrated operation.
*To focus on strengths and specific thrust areas to convert them into trade opportunities across the globe.
*Conversion of the post – harvest wastages in India, which accounts for about Rs 100,000 crore worth of agricultural produces are wasted in the Country every year due to inefficient value chain and lack of infrastructure for storage and value addition and preservation.
*Saving this huge quantity alone would be enough to feed the increasing population, and converting this huge loss itself is a huge business opportunity and in addition to also Strengthening infrastructure in the back & front end of the supply chain.
*Promotion of lucrative business models for implementation of our envisioned mega venture
*Mobilization of resources required for the development of the projects through a partnership with Private & Government agencies.
*Capacity building and empowering Indian MSMEs to lead business operations of global standards
*Fostering & sustenance of our entrepreneurs to reach Global scale of economies