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Eggoz poultry start-up devises asset-light model for the egg farmers
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Tuesday, 27 April, 2021, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
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Eggoz, a four-year-old IIT alumni initiated poultry value-added business, has devised an asset-light model for the egg farmers.
The company has shown that poultry farming with the support of technology can ensure entry of small and medium farmers into the main stream of poultry. The farmers are on-boarded into this streamlined programme where they receive technical and veterinarian advisory support, backed with IoT (Internet of Things) based tech backend. “This model helps many rural farmers to get into egg farming by making their capex entry barriers very low,” said Abhishek Negi, co-founder, Eggoz.
The start-up has successfully helped rural farmers double their revenue with the help of its proprietary model. It guarantees to buy off the entire produce of farmers by making direct payments into their accounts.
It has developed a farm management app, which makes the farms smarter with IoT sensors that capture environmental data. It is also in the process of patenting its cost-effective farm management technology. Further it is in the process of using the huge data that is received at both farm and flock levels to make relevant predictions using artificial intelligence.
The company provides nutritionally balanced, herbal feed and health supplements that are devoid of DDGS (Distiller's Dried Grains with Solubles) or any other harmful chemicals for healthier birds and better 'feed conversion' metrics. “We believe that the better the health of the birds, the better the yield, and the happier the hens and farmers are. We believe in supporting all farmers with flock sizes as low as 250-1000 hens also,” said Negi.
On how important is the need for the date of expiry for eggs, Negi said FSSAI mandates a set of rules for all packaged products, which includes packaging date and an expiry date for packaged eggs category. “But they don't have a specific set of regulations for selling eggs. Anybody can sell eggs in the open without an expiry date.”
He added, “But FSSAI also doesn't have any grading pattern for eggs nor mandates that all eggs should have a stamp or sticker like in the West. Most of these branded eggs are collected from faraway farms after laying and are stored in a warehouse for days together before its packaged. By the time it reaches an urban consumer, it's at least 10-12 days old and loses all its nutritional value.”
Whereas, the company packages its eggs within 36 hours of laying and makes sure the eggs are replaced in the stores every 7 days, so that customers get access to fresh eggs with all their nutritional value from their closest farms, just like milk.
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