Media Professional Launches India's 1st Community Pastoral Milk Brand

28-year-old Aakriti Srivastava was a fresh graduate when she came face to face with the harsh realities of the people of the Thar desert. There, for a documentary shoot for a week, she ended up spending 3-4 months and realised so much could be done later.

Doing the groundwork for launching Bahula Naturals, she along with her team researched on the idea for almost 5 years before it solidified. Aakriti along with her co-founders, Romal Singh and Suraj Singh, while on their learning expedition in the Thar Desert, came across the pastoralist communities who have been practicing animal herding for generations. It was the time when the GoI census highlighted that the camel population in India had declined by 37% in the last 10 years.

In their learning journey with NGOs like Urmul Seemant Samiti and Desert Resource Centre, they realised the importance of linking these communities with sustainable livelihoods to save camels and this age-old tradition of animal rearing in the region. 

They worked on building a strong foundation of this idea for 5 years through reaching out to communities in the most remote regions of the desert and understanding their challenges and potential. They got 4000 herders onboarded on this idea and then gave birth to Bahula Foods Pvt Ltd in 2022.

First encounter with Thar desert

Aakriti finished her graduation in media studies from IP University, Delhi in 2017. With aspirations of becoming a filmmaker, she was working on climate-specific documentaries with friends and some seniors. It was around that time that she decided to start travelling to places where climate change was not just a phenomenon in a book but something that was very real, and people were facing it. In her quest, she landed in a small village in Rajasthan called Bajju near the Indo-Pak borders.

Speaking to the journalist from Startup Pedia, Aakriti elaborated, “I had gone to shoot a documentary on women practising traditional artisanry such as embroidery, local and traditional art and craft there. It was supposed to be a trip for a few days, and I ended up staying for 3-4 months.” 

“I was following a very traditional approach to career growth. However, when I came across pastoralism in these remote desert regions, where animals graze in search of greener pastures, and how the herders travel as much as 800 km in a year on foot for the same, it amused me. It takes a village to setup something long term and I was lucky to find the right mentors who showed me the path”, she added.

Urmul Seemant Samiti and Desert Resource Centre have been working directly with these communities. Since they were NGOs, they constantly worked on people’s lives and livelihoods, bringing them together, raising their voices, and speaking for them. 

The arid region of Rajasthan is divided into two parts. One is attached to the Indira Gandhi Canal, and the other side is wholly dependent on rainfall for their water requirements. Livelihood is extremely difficult there. So, people mainly herd animals like camels, donkeys, sheep, goats, cows, and buffaloes, and they consider them part of the family. 

Over the next 5 years, Aakriti along with the NGOs did extensive research to understand the challenges and potential of pastoralist communities to create livelihood opportunities. They also did an extensive door-to-door survey, which facilitated their data backed decision making to launch products as unique as camel milk. 

From their income to challenges to aspirations, everything was keenly pondered to ensure fair and equitable business opportunities to the primary producers and parallelly work on their skilling, linkages to government schemes, policy advocacy and sensitisation towards the larger climate discourse and their contribution in combating it.

They discovered that camel milk is a superfood and can be used to create many more products while the entire ecosystem can in itself support many entrepreneurial systems. And this laid the foundation for Bahula Naturals.

Formation of Bahula Naturals team

In a candid chat with Startup Pedia, journalist Aakriti reminisced about how she met the co-founders, “The partnership between Suraj, Romal and myself was very organic. It was very natural for three people who had the same goals of good for the community and created a viable business model through it come together. We were lucky enough to have found the much needed mentorship by Mr Anshul Ojha, someone who had the vision and understood the intricacies  of the regions and mindset needed to do this business . We pooled in the required resources together and set off.”

Aakriti further described how things started taking shape. “We designed an ecosystem- Bahulaverse where different people came together to develop this ecosystem. Firstly, we have the farmer in the centre. We mobilise and sensitise them and then provide them with high quality input support of seeds, animal feed, knowledge and also provide them with biogas and other technical and technological expertise. Thereby our producers are equipped to produce high quality dairy and agri produce that is then processed by us to create a range of products”

“To date, our ecosystem has installed 750 biogas stations at the homes of these farmers. Through this biogas, women get an alternative to traditional wood chulha. The slurry from this biogas, a bi-product of this technology, is used as a biofertilizer for their farms where they grow organic fodder for cattle and for us black wheat, a low gluten alternative to traditional wheat that is also amongst our best-selling products”, she added.

“Secondly, to collect camel and cow milk, we have installed solar-powered instant chiller machines at remote village households. Farmers from nearby areas use the machine to chill the milk thereby extending its shelf life. Earlier, this milk would earn them meagre income as it would turn bad before reaching the plant. This chilled milk ensures fair compensation to farmers. We have set up 8 chilling plants across different areas. The community members themselves run them, and also improve their livelihood index.” 

Bahula Naturals products:

Bahula Naturals truly resonates with the meaning of its name, which means plurality or coming together of many forces. Their product basket is a true testimony of this fact. 

Bahula Naturals makes products in three categories- Camel milk, Indigenous  Cow Milk and Agri Produce. Camel milk is rich in nutrients and is available in pasteurised milk, camel milk ghee, camel milk cookies, and artisanal cheese. Their artisanal cheese, available in 4-to 5 categories like Feta, Halloumi, Ricotta, Aged Cheshire cheese, is extremely popular among consumers. Made of camel milk that is a little salty, camel milk cheese just wows your tastebuds. 

They also have products from Indigenous Rathi cows like pasteurised milk, paneer, buttermilk, and also bilona ghee or traditional handmade ghee. This bilona ghee is a bestseller amongst cow milk products. Bahula Naturals also sells Black wheat, a gluten-minimum product that is part of agri produce. It gives the same taste as regular wheat. Black wheat dalia and biscuits are also available. In their basket, Bahula Naturals also has Nagaur’s  famous kasoori methi, Sangri, cold-pressed oils like mustard oil, groundnut oil, etc. 

Challenges

Aakriti, the spirited entrepreneur, talks about how they took the challenges as she explained her struggles to the Startup Pedia journalist: "In retrospect, they do not seem like challenges anymore. Camel milk was a new opportunity; not many people knew about it, so our challenge was to create a new category and ensure that it reached everyone."

Camels are primarily found in Rajasthan, Gujarat and some parts of Ladakh. As per the 2019 census, the camel population has declined by about 40% over the years. Thus, the decline will be further if livelihood is not attached to camels.” Bahula Naturals took this challenge head on to create an uncommon product category. 

Clientele

Aakriti told the journalist from Startup Pedia about their very first clients, “We initially reached out to seniors from NGO and social impact workers’ ecosystem who generously agreed to pay for our products and give honest feedback. And then they referred us to neighbours and friends. And then, we started sending samples that again got great reviews. We also spent time educating people about our products. Now we have customers from almost every state of India.”  

Today, many local leaders and micro-entrepreneurs have been promoted  by the ecosystem, as each starts managing a different aspect, creating a better scope for livelihood. This way, Bahula Naturals gets their raw material directly from producers, which is then processed in the processing unit in a small village called Bajju in Bikaner district. All the products are then channelised for the market.

Bahula Naturals is the official partner of Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federation, thus selling their fresh camel milk through Saras. While the company sells B2B, they sell D2C via their website. Shipping across all states of the country, they operate from Bikaner. 

The forward March:

Aakriti further explained to the journalist from Startup Pedia, “In the first year, we started working with 10 households, but today almost 300 households earn their monthly income through Bahula Naturals.” So, the future definitely looks promising. 

The Ethiopian President also felicitated us, and we intend to replicate the model there. We are also extending our territories to Ladakh, where we are working on yak milk. And we shall soon be introducing yak milk and value added products, another first in the country. A plan is also underway to launch the app that will further help us connect with every single unit of our ecosystem.” 

The team also intends to establish Bahula Naturals as India’s first net zero emission organisation. In the next 5 years, they intend to make the entire process from procuring to processing to logistics to be carbon neutral. Since they are already using 100% renewable energy, they are already on that path.

Message to entrepreneurs

Aakriti is a spirited entrepreneur who knows the value of constant learning. And this is exactly what she has to tell others, “Never stop learning. The kind of pressure that an entrepreneur goes through is something that would break most people. One must be very strong-willed to take the good and bad days and keep hustling. If you accept your shortcomings and work on them then you are going to make it one day with a lasting vision.”