Hitesh Lohani, Managing Director
Priyanka Lohani, Director

When around 870 million people globally are deprived of food, losing or wasting around 1.3 billion tonnes of food valued over $1 trillion is nothing less than a crime. A report by FAO says that if just one-fourth of lost or wasted food were saved, it could end global hunger. Another FAO statistics states that food loss and waste accounts for about 4.4 gigatons of greenhouse gas emission each year. Hence it is the responsibility of each stake holder(from farm to fork) to ensure nothing is lost/wasted. Food loss could be the result of inadequate infrastructure, markets, price mechanisms, poor supply chain, improper packaging and many more.

Understanding the impact food loss has on the world population, Hitesh Lohani (Managing Director) & Priyanka Lohani (Director)incepted Top Fresh International Private Limited (TFIPL) in 2017 in Delhi. “Our company’s foundation stone was laid on the very concept of food

lost during transit. Most of the brands work with distributor model, which compromises their brand name in a lot of possible ways, where the quality is highly affected due to poor supply chain,” explains Hitesh. Hence TFIPL deals directly with every client, eliminating the middle men, agents or distributor model. This helps the company keep a thorough check on the quality of the product and supply fresh products like fresh fruits, green peas, sweet corn, veg soya chaap, broccoli, mix vegetable, strawberry, blackberry French fries and many more at the top conditions.

"TFIPL deals directly with every client, eliminating the middle men, agents or distributor model"

Quality being the centrifugal force of the company, it packs every product at its own cold chain & packaging unit in Delhi that maintains a very low temperature but ensure no ice formation, which is common otherwise as the temperature drop leads to thawing of a product which degrades the quality. “This gives the best shelf life and can be achieved only with good relations with third party warehouse providers and creating your own stock,” adds Priyanka. To further ensure healthy products, TFIPL has leased a small land in Rudrapurcity of Uttarakhand for pesticide-free cultivation of green peas.

Customer is the King
Giving its ears to every client concerns, TFIPL puts their opinions and suggestions on top priority and

adds products as per their demand. Under taking unique approaches likes constantly changing its prices accordingly to the produce and passing on the margins to the customers, no comprise on quality, a small but effective & efficient team that accelerates the communication process, product-based designing and packaging, and dealing only with best yield products giving high taste and shelf life, the company is growing by engaging in newer products which could be a future generic product such as cut frozen vegetables in different formats.

To ensure cost saving for clients, the company has leased some top-class processing plants in Uttarakhand. Further packaging machines ensure reduced man handling of the packaging process and hence reduces the chances of quality being affected. Today, the company has created a huge customer base through online portals like Grofers, Bigbasket and others.

This FSSAI startup deals with fresh fruits, dry fruits, dates and frozen food/fruits, and is in the process of applying for ISO certification to further accelerate the growth. “This will surely keep us motivated for the coming years. We also believe that IQF (Individual Quick Freezing) technology will solve India’s food shortage due to poor handling and we will play an instrumental role in it,” concludes the duo.