From helping farmers reduce their waste to taking the family legacy forward: top stories of the week

There is nothing like losing a parent. It changes your entire life and pushes you right to the top of the queue.

For Adith and Ankita Fernandes, the loss of their father Francis Fernandes during the pandemic in May 2020 came as a shock. Francis had built Mumbai’s famous seafood restaurant FreshCatch, and ran it successfully for the past 25 years. His demise not just affected his children but also the company's employees and customers.

“To our father, the restaurant was like his third baby, he would caress it like that, and while I was there at his funeral, I knew he would never want us to just leave the legacy. My sister and I pulled ourselves together and the next thing in our mind was to keep his legacy intact,” says Adith.

In an interaction with SMBStory, Adith and Ankita talked about their difficult phase. With widespread uncertainty among the employees, they assured them that the business would survive without fear. They also had the task of reassuring their customers that the legacy won't die after Francis' passing. this signalled a fresh start for Fresh Catch.

Read the full story here.

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Raheja Solar Food Processing

Depending on when you are reading this article, you could have paid anywhere from Rs 10 to Rs 100 for a kilo of tomatoes. 

This wild swinging of market prices leaves farmers struggling to find adequate compensation for their work. Scenes of farmers dumping fresh produce on roads amid a price crash are commonplace across the country. Despite being a global agricultural powerhouse, every year around 30% - 40 % of total production in India ends up as waste at various levels of the supply chain. 

One way to reduce food wastage is by drying fresh produce. According to Varun Raheja, Founder of Raheja Solar Food Processing, the global demand for dried produce is currently worth $70 billion. 

Varun, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Indore, says the inspiration to launch the company came after he learnt about sustainable living and practices at Jimmy McGilligan Centre for Sustainable Development, an NGO in Indore. 

His interest in solving farmers’ woes led him to research solar dryers. A few years later, in 2019, he launched his own company. 

“I am not a job person, I wanted to do something problem solving and what else can be meaningful other than supporting our ann data (farmers). I have seen farmers working at the mercy of buyers and also wasting their produce because of a fraught supply chain. Farmers anyway suffer capital scarcity and waste produce pile up to their problems and this is the area I thought something needs to be done,” Varun tells SMBStory.

Read the full story here.

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Metro & Metro Shoes

Metro and Metro Shoes has carved a niche for itself in the men’s footwear market. And now, the brand’s spotlight is on its recently launched women’s footwear segment. 

Started in 1972 by Dwarka Nath Kalsi, the Agra-based shoe manufacturer specialises in formal shoes, boots, flip flops, sneakers, etc. Globally, the company exports to leading shoe giants like Hush Puppies, Clark’s, Deichmann, and more, in countries, including the US, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, and Sweden, among others.

In the last decade, Metro and Metro Shoes entered the domestic market and launched an online marketplace with its brand, Overdrive. 

Now, you can ask what took so long for this five-decade-old company to enter the women’s footwear segment? Meenakshi Kalsi, Managing Partner, Metro and Metro Shoes, tells SMBStory, 

“There are many intricacies in women’s footwear—different sets of rules when it comes to production, and the market is very different too. There are formal, comfort, heels, wedges, etc., in women’s footwear.”

Helping her in this journey is Meenakshi’s elder daughter Arushi Kalsi. The third-generation prodigy showed an inclination towards the family business while she was studying. Today, Meenakshi says she is confident enough to single-handedly take on the women’s footwear business, along with her elder daughter Arushi.

Read the full story here.