Three engineering graduates interested in the agricultural and dairy industries teamed up to tackle the most pressing problem in the market: the declining quality of milk.
Dairy production in India is below average in terms of quality and yield per cow due to lack of technical feeding methodology and high quality feed products. Existing agritech companies focus on improving networks, supply chains, fruits and vegetables, leaving out the livestock segment mainly in the area of input products.
Prepared by Kumar Ranjan, Ravi Chauhan and Ankit Patel eFeed in 2021 to address these issues. Focusing on the animal health and nutrition sector, the company creates high-quality food supplements & food additives to improve the quality of dairy and milk products.
Ranjan, co-founder and CEO of eFeed, told Entrackr, “There is a huge difference in the input costs that farmers put on their cows and the money generated from milk production each year. They cannot recover the expenses. There are only two things that can be done – either reduce input costs or increase milk production – both ways farmers can make money.”
The Pune-based company makes supplements with vitamins, minerals and microbes to not only help cows produce more milk but better quality milk. The supplement will focus on giving cows the right nutrients needed to maintain a longer healthy life and help in improving gut health. The supplement also targets the problem of excessive methane emissions from cattle due to poor nutrition.
If the input is good then the next result will be seen in the output, said Ranjan. According to the D2C model, the formulation is made and the product is sold directly to farmers through partners on the ground and fulfillment.
In addition, digital nutrition applications are offered to assist in the education of farmers about cattle nutrition. This application helps in balancing rations (feed composition) for cattle by localizing feed raw materials. It also focuses on quality feed inputs by creating high quality additives (proteins for cattle) to add to raw materials. Digital advice and quality inputs ensure better quality milk production and higher yields from animals.
belongs to India the size of the animal health care market reaching Rs 73.4 billion in 2022. This is expected to increase to Rs 120.3 billion by 2028 with a compound annual growth rate of 8.94%. In a market this size, eFeed has successfully raised a seed round raising $1 million in December 2022. The round was led by Omnivor followed by Better Capital, Huddle, AngelList and Let’s Venture.
With no significant local competition, the company competes globally with Virbac, Nutreco and Elanco.
With a valuation of $4 million, the company has an active user base of one lakh farmers. Its operations are currently focused on Uttar Pradesh. Their current focus is to expand and strengthen the business domestically before moving to other geographies in the country.
