DeHaat partners Freshtrop Fruits to boost grape, fruit exports
Agritech platform DeHaat is entering into a strategic partnership with Freshtrop Fruits Ltd to enhance the export business of grapes and other fruits from India. The partnership aligns with the vision of both companies to strengthen the fruit value chain from India with deeper engagement with farmers, better technology transfer and improved infrastructure, the company said in a statement.
Shashank Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, DeHaat, said, “The way Freshtrop has built its relationship with over 50 global retail chains delivering a strong business presence across 20 countries is quite commendable. Over the last 25 years, Freshtrop has empowered hundreds of farmers to start the grape export journey which completely aligns with DeHaat’s vision of being a ‘farmers first’ organisation. We established our export business 18 months ago and are today exporting more than 20 agri produce from India to the Middle East, UK and EU. We see strong synergies around the complementary core competencies between DeHaat and Freshtrop. We are super excited about this collaboration to grow the grapes and overall agri export business together. Each member of the Freshtrop’s founding family along with the larger team will continue to remain actively involved in the business and DeHaat will bring its network and resources for market expansion, development of new grape varieties and will provide deeper pre-harvest support to the associated farmers.”
Offering full-stack agri services
The partnership will enable DeHaat to offer its full-stack agri services including the availability of high-quality inputs, personalised advisory, financing, insurance and access to wider global markets to Freshtrop’s farmer network, enabling seamless information exchange and better value discovery.
DeHaat said it is in the advanced stages of taking over Freshtrop Fruits’ export network and grading, packing and precooling centres, and will absorb all people from the company, including the top leadership team, in its structure.
Ashok Motiani, Managing Director, Freshtrop Fruit Ltd said, “In order to take the business to the next level it is essential to work on development of new varieties of grapes, establish access to other global markets and the domestic market and diversify the product basket for a year-round activity. DeHaat’s strength is in providing quality farm inputs, using technology to provide predictive crop advisory and in its infrastructure for domestic sales and distribution. There is a fundamental alignment of value systems in both organisations of farmer-first approach, respect for everyone in the value chain, maintaining integrity and investing in innovation for further value creation. Hence, we feel that this association would be beneficial to all stakeholders with farmers getting access to new varieties and potential to diversify into other products, customers getting a larger basket of products from an established source, employees getting better prospect through organisational growth and the shareholders getting a good return on their investment.”