Fresh Red Zomatoes!

How food tech major Zomato is making an audacious bid to transform itself into a farm-to-fork company.

- Rajiv Singh

Lokesh’s day in the fields begins at 3 pm. Over the next few hours, his wife Manjula and he harvest a variety of agri-produce, from red amaranth, spring onion, suva and curry leaves, to coriander leaves fenugreek, mint leaves and spinach. It’s then time to sort the produce as per the grading specified by their buyers. By late evening, the husband-wife farmer duo loads the Chota Hathi (small elephant), a Tata Ace mini truck with roughly 300 kg of the produce it has harvested since afternoon.

Every night, Lokesh drives over 30 km—an hour and a half from Lakkondahalli village—to transport his agri-produce to a warehouse in KR Puram, a suburb in Bengaluru.

At 30 minutes past midnight, the 7,000 sq ft expansive warehouse is awash in white light. The depot has clearly demarcated rows for groceries, dairy products, flour and rice. Stacks of onions and potatoes, neatly wrapped in red and brown sacks, are meticulously placed on the left. Towards the rear are three big cold rooms. The one operating at 0-4 degree Celsius keeps poultry; vegetable and fruit find a place in the adjacent room at 8-12 degrees; and frozen meat is in the last room at -18 to -22 degrees.

Lokesh begins unloading the Chota Hathi. A battery of workers starts to sort the produce in the manner prescribed in the manual prepared by Dhayalan Paul, head of quality at HyperPure, the company that owns the warehouse. “Spinach to be packed in bunches of 250 gm. Look for spoilt leaves, dirt and mud,” Paul instructs the boys, who are clad in HyperPure-branded tees, their heads covered with white stretchable caps. The packing finishes by 4 am, ready to be transported in batches to restaurants in Bengaluru.