Microgreens, Mirjan and Theni

Dear Reader,

Over a decade ago, I saw tiny bunches of a green leafy vegetable in my local market. Neatly stacked in a wicker basket, the miniature greens looked interesting. I asked Kaki, my vendor, who told me it was ‘Samudra methi’—young fenugreek seedlings grown near the seashore. The tiny bunches were priced at Rs3 each. I bought 15 of them and prepared a sabzi as per Kaki's instructions. 

Today, samudri methi (or chhoti methi) is one of the many microgreens cultivated indoors across India. With rising pollution and reducing immunity, microgreens are becoming a popular source of nutrition. Yet, their availability is limited due to short shelf life. 

To address this, three friends from Wayanad in Kerala are training people to become microgreens entrepreneurs. Basil Varghese, Anurag Mohan and Mohammed Razin come from business families and their venture Mikrogrenz is not targeted at money-making. 

They told my colleague Riya that after seeing health problems in children and the elderly around them, they learned about microgreens and set up a 100 sq ft area for trial and error. After their success, the trio now sells microgreens to local community members and train people in their cultivation with just Rs70,000 (including the materials for the initial setup). 

So if you want to grow microgreens for consumption or sale, look up this story. It has all the details.

My colleague Chandhini spoke to Nithya and her engineer husband Rajapandi. The couple began handcrafting organic soaps in their kitchen in Theni, Tamil Nadu, in 2018. Today, their startup Akathiya Naturals exports personal care products to the US and other countries. 

It has hit a monthly turnover of Rs12 lakh and hopes to close this fiscal with Rs 2 crore in turnover. Nithya and Rajapandi's work shows that startups can be built even in small towns and in solitude, without the pressures of networking. 

Riya has put together a story about five moringa entrepreneurs, who also created their success stories in small villages, away from glamour and big branding. How? They did it by focusing on exports and wholesale markets.

Our Sunday story is on Mirjan, the fort of Karnataka’s Pepper Queen. The details are in the link below.

Happy Reading! 

Warmly,

Rashmi

These three friends help people set up microgreens unit with just Rs 70,000 investment

How this couple built a global personal care business with Rs7,000 investment; monthly turnover hits Rs12 lakh

Five moringa entrepreneurs who made it big from small villages

Mirjan: The Fort of Karnataka’s Pepper Queen