Indian start-up wins ‘Rabobank Food Loss Challenge Asia’

Ecozen Solutions, an Indian-based start-up has won the inaugural ‘Rabobank Food Loss Challenge Asia’ that was launched to highlight agri-tech solutions to the growing problem of food loss and wastage from farm-to-market all over the world. The company that enables the farm-to-fork movement of perishables with its solar-based cold rooms at farm level was selected from 5 finalists at the event finale held in Singapore few days back.

Ecozen Solutions has executed its solutions in the ASEAN region which includes countries like Vietnam and Indonesia and plans further expansion into other developing markets like Africa and Southeast Asia. The company provides its cold rooms to farmers on lease and connects them through the platform to organized consumers or buyers who are looking to source perishables from them.

It is important to mention that every year around 1.3 billion tons of food is lost all across the world and at the same time world population is said to surpass 9 billion by 2050. Hence to meet the growing demand for food, global production will have to be increased by at least 60%.

Ecozen Solutions received the Jury’s Prize of US$ 15000 as well as Audience’s Prize of US 5000, according to Rabobank.

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Ecozen Prateek Singhal said, “A win at the Food Loss Challenge Asia is a validation of our efforts and product offering. Food loss is a big issue in all developing countries and at Ecozen we are striving to build solutions to control this. This challenge will help us to reach and work together with like-minded businesses and organizations working towards solving food loss. Moreover, it can also provide access to capital which would fast-track our product development and business expansion plans.”