Manish Piyush, an IIM graduate and who has worked across several countries in senior positions joined hands with childhood friend Aditya Kumar and came back to their home state, Jharkhand, to solve a basic but pressing issue- fulfilling the need of chemical-free milk. This gave birth to Puresh Daily Foods, a mobile-based subscription application which deals in chemical-free milk and purely organic dairy products.
The company was founded in 2019, which was facilitated by the co-founders leaving their cushy jobs and their subsequent hard work which included learning to code, selling software and also partaking in the job of a milkman to understand and get a hold of the dairy business.
The spark
Manish Piyush wanted to foray into the startup business when he witnessed first-hand the sheer brain drain Jharkhand was suffering when he was attending a corporate conference in his home state. He called up his childhood friend, Aditya Kumar, who was his schoolmate and fellow alumnus at BIT-Mesra to be his partner in this venture.
They both wanted to initiate to base their business from Jharkhand, a state which is reeling with lack in new business activity, as against popular startup hotbeds such as Bengaluru and Gurugram. It all started with an extremely fundamental problem- the lack of pure, good-quality and organic milk.
As opposed to other countries where he worked, India lacked a supply of milk which was rich in essential nutrients such as the Omega-3,4,5 and Vitamin D. The milk available in our country is mostly processed and not adulteration-free. Co-incidentally in 2018, both of them got an opportunity to develop a program on behalf of the government-run milk processing company, which was a shocking revelation for both of them. Thus, the idea of starting a dairy business took form.
To try and understand the business, they bought cows and lived like milkmen for a few months as well. They went through ancient texts which revealed that cows that were fed herbs would produce milk with tons of nutritional properties. They experimented with the idea and their research reaped benefits. As opposed to the protein content in mainstream milk brands which were around 2.9 per cent, they obtained 4 per cent protein content in milk, per glass.
Business model and their various initiatives
Puresh charges INR 60 for a litre of milk as opposed to INR 40 charge by mainstream companies. Apart from milk, the startup also offers fresh and organic dairy-based products to its customers.
The company has about 1,500 active users at present and has witnessed an impressive 30 per cent month-on-month growth in its customer base. It also plans to capitalise on its dairy ERP solution- the first of its kind. The founders, having landed upon the fact that there is no dairy ERP tool in India, created one which uses a combination of AI, IoT and CRM which is aimed at improving farm practices and analyse the quality of milk.
Since most dairy farmers cannot read and write, let alone use complex software, the ERP too only requires them to use their thumb.
Conclusion- raking in profits as a fresher
Puresh Daily is a bootstrapped startup which utilises funds raised from friends and family and is supported by Startup India’s Jharkhand chapter.
It achieved break-even revenues within the first six months since its inception, and the profits were recirculated around the company. The startup has a turnover of INR 1.2 Crore within a year of its launch.
The company now owns 80 cows for the milk and the team size has now grown to 40. It is now aiming to establish its footprint in other eastern tier-two cities such as Patna, Bokaro and Bhubaneswar.