Millet entrepreneur sets up eco-friendly bags business to create livelihoods, clocks Rs1 crore annual turnover

In 2013, Annapurna Kalluri had an opportunity to start a garment and bag-making training centre to empower rural women in Kolluru in Andhra Pradesh. Being a member of the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of India (ALEAP) as a millet entrepreneur, she was entrusted with training rural women who earned only seasonal income from farm activities.

“I was assigned the task of implementing a central government project for training women to make eco-friendly bags so that they could be self-employed and reduce dependence on farming,” says Annapurna, who quit her job with IBM in 2006 to become an entrepreneur. She worked in IBM India’s hardware marketing team after completing her MBA. 

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Training centre to manufacturing unit

The centre in Kolluru trained 650 women over three years. “After the project was over, we wanted some of the women to start their own work. But they did not have the confidence. They urged me to start a unit so that they could make jute bags while I could look after marketing and sales,” she recalls. 

By then, Annapurna had established Sri Haritha Agro Food to make and sell millet-based food items. However, she decided to help the women in bag-making. 

Annapurna invested Rs 15 lakh in buying high-end machines for cutting, screen printing and stitching and started Mathesis Eco Ways LLP in 2015 to create livelihoods for rural women. The work started with 20 women at that time. 

Her parents also moved to Kolluru to support the women and she took care of marketing. Annapurna also hired a master trainer to continue training the women and look after order execution. “Our first order for 450 bags came from Canara Bank. I wanted these women to start earning from day one, and the order was a good opportunity. I did not know designing, but I wanted to create employment,” Annapurna says.

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The turning point

She left everything under the care of the trainer as there were two months to dispatch the bags. “However, three days before the dispatch, the trainer said the work was incomplete and they would not be able to deliver the bags!” 

That was the turning point for Annapurna as she realised she had to be fully involved in production apart from marketing. 

“I took a bus from Hyderabad to Kolluru and saw that only cutting had been done. The printing and stitching of 450 bags had to be finished in two days.”

She took all the cut and uncut bag pieces in a taxi and went from one tailor and bag maker to another to get the work completed. Somebody agreed to ready 70 bags, another person printed the bags in a few hours, and Annapurna called practically everyone in her circle for help. 

“A day before the delivery, I collected 70 bags from Elluru and the rest from Vijaywada. This one experience taught me everything about stitching, printing and execution. From that day, I started taking orders independently, and the journey continues till date,” she says.

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Today, Annapurna runs a Rs 1 crore business of making eco-friendly bags using canvas, cotton and jute. They are reusable and biodegradable. She is expanding to gifting items made using wood and natural colours. The buyers are mostly corporates who place bulk orders for events and gifting etc.

Growth and empowerment

“Initially, we made 400 bags per month and sold them at Rs100 to Rs200 depending on size and design. The annual revenues were around Rs6 lakh to Rs7 lakh. My mother took care of quality, and that’s when customer confidence increased,” she says.

With time, the number of orders went up. “I have been marketing through connections and requesting people to pass on the word,” says Annapurna. By the time COVID hit, the venture had scaled up to Rs60 lakh annual turnover. “Covid was a setback. Till 2020, we were scaling up, and took up a bigger hall for manufacturing,” she says.

“Our women workers were able to educate their children, buy farm inputs and support the family. Things have changed in the village now as women are starting on their own and even getting bank loans for their micro-enterprises,” Annapurna says.

Four of the women trained by Annapurna took a shop on the main road in the village and started stitching, becoming entrepreneurs.

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After COVID, she continued to run the centre by making masks for health centres, police stations and villagers. “But in the second wave, women stopped coming to the centre. Alongside, seeing their dwindling numbers, I had started setting up a unit in Hyderabad. I could not refuse to execute the orders I had agreed to deliver.”

Annapurna then scaled up the Hyderabad centre with a mix of men and women workers and began giving some of the orders to the four women in the village. 

“The Hyderabad centre clocks Rs1 crore through jute, cloth and canvas bag. I have adopted another centre in Dindigul where we are training women to make wood-based laser cut products like photo frames, pen stands, gift boxes and other items,” she says. With the new centre, Annapurna will continue her work of empowering women and creating eco-friendly products.

(US Anu is a Madurai-based writer. She specialises in stories around human interest, environment and art and culture.)

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