From Farm to Fork with Kaze Living

Making fresh produce accessible for all

“India has had such a rich history of eating greens. Then why is it that in the cities today, our salads remain limited to tomato, onion, cucumber and kakdi?”

It’s a question which motivated Shruti Jain to start Kaze Living with her Co-Founder, Anisha Goel. Their goal was to make fresh, chemical-free fruits & vegetables available to all, direct from “Farm-to-Fork”.

“Organic produce, as healthy as it may be, is clearly not affordable for everybody,” says Shruti. But after she was introduced to Hydroponics, she realised the ways in which it could act as a game-changer for the manner in which an average urban Indian consumes food. “It’s the best way to make fresh produce affordable & accessible to everybody,” she presses. With this venture, they also made some conscious decisions to preserve the environment by making Kaze Living 100% plastic-free. They also ensured that their produce has the lowest carbon footprint.

Growth even during the lockdown 

In Kaze Living’s third year of operations, the lockdown was imposed. They knew that if they shut down, they would lose out on all the progress they had made till then. It was nearly a “do or die situation” for them! However, they witnessed an increase in acceptance towards their preservative-free, healthy products due to COVID. This led to a surge in their demand. “Thankfully, we found Pidge, which made delivering during the lockdown possible for us.The industry back then lacked a B2C logistics service provider that guaranteed order tracking, OTP authentication, trained polite riders, temperature-controlled delivery, and delicate handling of food packages. All these are premium offerings, which have now become a hygiene factor for F&B startups such as Kaze Living,” says Shruti.
They were able to save time and effort in routing and tracking packages. This helped them to scale quickly, with more flexibility. “When most brands were shutting shops, Kaze Living was growing,” she added. One of Kaze Living’s Co-Founders, Abhishek Dalal, joined during that time. They even hired a majority of their team during the lockdown.

Enhancing customer experience

What started with fresh leafy greens, is now a full fledged online platform for a variety of healthy and preservative-free products. Shruti believes that “whenever you buy a product, you should be able to count the ingredients on your fingertips. That’s the level of purity we look for!” She says that there are many local artisanal brands in India with some high quality & nutritious products. However, these brands have limited reach. They want such brands to reach more and more people by providing an online platform in the form of Kaze Living.
Pidge’s radius-free operation and same day deliveries have facilitated the expansion of its reach across Delhi NCR, even when their base is in Noida. With Pidge, Kaze Living is able to delight its customers, and live up to its   brand promise. “A polite rider wearing a mask and delivering your package with care goes a long way in enhancing our brand image,” she says.

Next: Building a health-focused community

Kaze Living continues to grow with a loyal community of health-focused urban consumers, local artisanal producers, and chefs and cooking enthusiasts. Their subscribers stay with them because they trust the superior quality, and high safety standards of the curated selection of food products on their platform. “As people are getting used to the new normal, they are looking for healthier alternatives to their kitchen products,” says Shruti. You can find a nutritious alternative for almost everything on their website. Whether it’s fresh farm produce or rich, wholesome chocolates, they have something for everyone in your family. “If 2020 is the year of focusing on our health, then what is stopping us from making our eating habits healthy as well?”
They also plan to build a data and expertise sharing platform in India for all soilless farms. Kaze Living’s goal is to improve the yields of these farms by 40%, and minimize their water and energy footprint. They plan to leverage sensors, IoT and machine learning to achieve this effectively.