The world has become a busy place to live with every inhabitant pushing for time in the competitive environment.  This means that there is limited time for people to spend for themselves.  Atleast 50-60% of the urban populations eat-out atleast 3-4 times in a week.  The food consumed at home has become limited to eating cereal and ready-to-eat food that take little time to prepare.  The ready-to-eat business is one of the most thriving as plenty of dishes are yet to be packaged into this format.  Farmveda is one of the best among many in this segment of packaged food business.

About Farmveda

It started in a small way, back in 2005 with farmers from Gunipalli deciding to work together for their mutual benefit.  Gunipalli is in Bukkapatnam Mandal in Anantapur District, AP.  Farmers were not getting the right price for their produce after months of hard work during the agriculture season. A few outsiders from a then small NGO called the Centre for Collective Development (CCD) helped the farmers work out their aspirations.

Ready Mixes

There are plenty of products that are packaged by the Farmveda.  Among these recently, I got an opportunity to try few ‘Instant Mixes’ and ‘Ready to Cook’ items.

Multi-millet Dosa and Idli Mix are ‘Ready to Cook’ items that can be used to mix with basic ingredients & cooked to prepare final dish.

Upma and Lemon Rasam are ‘Instant Mix’ that need to mix with hot-water, to prepare the final dish.

Farmveda also sells the famous ‘Andhra Gun Powder’ that can be consumed with Idli, Dosa, Rice or even chapati.

Multi Millet Dosa (Ready to cook)

Dosa is one of the most popular South India that people don’t mind consuming at any time of day. We all know different variants of the Dosa that use Broken Rice and Black Lentil (‘Urad Daal’ in Hindi).  Its usually prepared by putting small portion of batter on ‘Flat Pan’ and oil.

The special Dosa Mix from Farmveda has Ragi (finger millet), red rice, wheat, barley, sweet corn, sorghum, navane, sama (little millet), oodalu, koralu, harka, baragu, rajgira, methi, sooji, salt and vegetable oil.  Every ingredient that’s been added is rich in calories and packed with flavors.

Instead of breaking one’s head to get the combination right, the ‘Ready to cook’ Dosa mix is perfect.

Idli Mix (Instant Mix)

This is another famous dish from South India that popular across India.  The most popular version of the Idlis contains Rice or Rave as the main ingredients.  But its very hard to get mix right so that the Idli comes out soft.

Farmveda has pre-mixed rice, urad dal, malic acid, salt, sodium bicarbonate and vegetable oil.  One needs just mix it with water and put a small portion in the Idli moulds.

The brand has specially mentioned the need to cool the Idli before removing from the mould.  To avoid sticking, people apply some oil in the Idli mould so it comes out easily.

Upma (Ready to cook)

An Instant mix that perfect for anyone who has very little time to prepare breakfast/evening snack and wants to head out.

We know that Upma look simple with few ingredients but its hard to get the combination right.  There are many small ingredients that go into making the final product.  Farmweda Upma mix has ingredients like lemon, green chillis, turmeric, curry leaves, ginger, mustard, urad dal, chana dal, salt and sugar.

The steps that need to be followed are clearly mentioned and its easy for anyone to now prepare a good upma.

Lemon Rasam (Instant Mix)

Most of Indians consume the Rice with Sambar that contains cooked daal.  Sambar is harder to digest due to the presence of ‘Daal’.  Instead of Sambar, a lot of times Rasam is preferred as it does not daal.  At few places they do add ‘Daal’ that’s finely minced.  The most dominating flavour is that of the Tomato & Tamarind.  This dish can only be prepared by an expert and very hard to perfect.

The Lemon Rasam mix from Farmveda has all the required ingredients in the right balance.  Ingredients like Toor Dal, Moong Dal, Ginger, Peper, Jeera, Tomato, Green Chillis, Curry Leaves, Lemon Powder, Hing are present.

This dish can be taken with rice, idli or even dosa.  The rasam comes with some very healthy ingredients, perfect for someone recovering from fever, cough or cold.

Achievements

Farmveda has over 25,000 + farmers working together across 3 districts. The movement is slowly spreading to other States.  As of now, only the profit goes to the farmers. In the long run, the ownership will also entirely go the farmers of India.  That’s why they say, “Farmveda – owned by the farmers of India”.

The high-quality ready mixes are easy to use, healthy, tasty, and without any preservatives.  Products from the company have received positive responses by public as well as few celebrities.  Farmveda also supplies products to few 5-star hotels such as Lemon Tree and Le Meridian.

The company has served Ragi Idlis and Upma to runners’ part of TCS 10k Marathon and Spirit of Wipro Run.

Final Thoughts

Farmers are known to toil hard in the farms in scorching heat and grow some of our staple grain.  It’s good to see them being part of a company that helps in empowering them and making them self-sufficient.  Looking at the success of the farmers, others also will feel encouraged to take up farming.

All the ‘Instant Mixes’ and ‘Ready to Cook’ items are well packaged and are approved by FSSAI.  No preservatives are used in the product and final dish that comes has right balance of taste & flavours.  The products can be ordered online via BigBasket & Amazon.  I recommend the Farmveda products to everyone.

More Information

https://www.farmveda.in/