As per Global Hunger Index 2020, India ranks only 94th out of 107 countries, despite high food production levels. Therefore, reducing food loss and waste to tackle food and nutrition insecurity becomes a major concern at a country level, alongside reducing greenhouse gas, improving farmers income, and advancing economic development.
This is where Go Green Warehouses come into the picture. The brainchild of Santosh Sahu and Maulik Shah, veterans in Agri supply chain and warehousing. Founded in 2018, the company offers integrated commodity management solutions to clients such as Reliance Retail, Olam, Adani, Cargill, Amul, and Suguna Foods, among others. It works across the Agri value chain, providing an array of post-harvest services.
Headquartered in Ahmedabad, Go Green Warehouses provides solutions to the Agri value chain partners at a cost-effective price. Some of them include Agri warehousing and preservation solutions for those who want secured and efficient warehousing with zero wastage; logistics, premium leasing and 3PL for all industries; pest management services, quality analyses and assaying services (operating through partner NABL approved labs); collateral management and audit and inspection services; financial facilitation through banks, NBFCs, repositories, big financiers through both pledge financing model as well as trade facilitation mode; commodity supply to institutions and organisations (dry as well as perishable commodities); supply of fresh fruits and vegetables to businesses; and others.
Besides this, the company also provides quality assessment – primary processing like clearing, sorting, packing, private labelling, etc.- alongside last-mile delivery solutions and commodity financing facility in every supply chain node.
Go Green Warehouses CEO said farmers sell their commodities at throwaway prices as they aren’t aware of price discovery of commodities. So, when somebody brings the commodity to the warehouse, this can be monetised to get a loan through different sources. They can also store it until they get good prices, making easily 20-25 percent of the margin on the same commodity. “In a way, we wanted to minimise this distress of buying and selling through our Agri solutions,” said Sahu, with an intent to help farmers, FPOS, and other aggregators at the village level.
Secondly, the company wanted to minimise the food losses by setting up good infrastructure warehousing and logistics support. “Lastly, we wanted to create infrastructure at the village level and connect them technologically so that food can move and the traceability can be looked at both ends,” added Sahu.
Eyes Expansion
Since 1925, Go Green Group has been actively involved in the Agri commodity space. However, the company has come a long way from where it all started. From a small warehouse of 12,000 sq. ft in Ahmedabad, it has grown to currently have 500 plus warehouses in 17 states in India. “Slowly, we are increasing our number of warehouses,” shared Sahu.
“We are trying to increase our presence across India into all Agri commodities. We are looking into non-perishables, and perishables, non-Agri as the next stage of growth. Lastly, we are also thinking of increasing our presence toward 3PL services,” said Sahu, sharing the roadmap for the next five years.
Santosh Sahu, Director , CEO & Co-Founder at Go Green Warehouses
Santosh Sahu is an agri-business professional with extensive experience developing agri value chains in sectors like warehousing, commodity financing, trade facilitation business, rural retail, fresh produce, agri inputs and cold chain. Before starting Go Green Group, he was the director and head of business development at Kunvarji Group, AVP - business development at NBHC. He has also worked with NCML, Krishdhan Seeds, Worlds Window, RPG Spencer Retail, Reliance Retail, and Godrej Agrovet. Mr Sahu has an MBA degree in agribusiness from DAIICT, Gandhinagar, and an agriculture graduate from OUAT, Bhubaneshwar. With specialisation in IT agriculture.
