Bihar Friends Turn Banana Waste into Rs 50 Lakh Turnover Business

“Dusron ke liye kyun mehnat karen? Agar karni hi hai, toh humne socha khud ke liye mehnat karen.” [Translation: Why should we toil for others? We thought we'd rather work for ourselves]

This is what Jagat Kalyan told us when we interviewed him at Startup Pedia.  

Hailing from Hajipur in Bihar, Jagat is an engineering and MBA graduate. He did his Engineering degree from the Acharya Institute of Technology in Bangalore and went to Taxila Business School in Jaipur to do his MBA in Marketing.

After finishing his education, Jagat started an internship at Startup Ecohoy. This got converted into a full-time job which he happily accepted. After some time, he quit Startup Ecohoy. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when people were fearing getting fired from their jobs, Jagat Kalyan had three very enticing offers. 

He told Startup Pedia, “One job offer was straight from Tanzania, another from Dubai, and the third from IDFC Bank in India itself. As promising as my future looked ahead, I decided to reject all three offers. I had a plan.” 

According to Jagat, the plan was to start something of his own with his college friends Satyam Kumar and Nitish K Verma.

Jagat Kalyan said, “I met Satyam and Nitish in college. The three of us became very good friends. We all come from Bihar and that bonded us together when we were studying. When we came to our hometown after college and our share of work experience, we decided to start something of our own."

"Somehow, we all shared the idea of working for ourselves and adding value to society rather than working for someone else. Plus at the time, COVID was spreading rapidly. None of us wanted to leave our families behind at home and pursue a corporate career away from them,” he added.

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HOW IT ALL STARTED

In 2020, Jagat, Satyam, and Nitish held long conversations about what lay ahead of them. The objective was simple - do something of their own and generate employment at the ground level. 

After 6 to 8 months of research and long nights spent in ideating concepts for their startup, the trio finalized banana fibres as their key product. 

When asked about the reasoning behind the decision, Jagat Kalyan explained, “See, we wanted to pick famous products in Bihar and put them on the world map. Our state is one of the largest producers of bananas, and we knew the fruit’s fiber had various use-cases. There were already reports around the country and outside where people in the textile and sanitation businesses were successfully experimenting with banana fiber as an eco-friendly, sustainable material.” 

Jagat, Satyam, and Nitish went to Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Vaishali to pitch their idea. There they met a doctor and senior scientist by the name of Sunita Kushwaha who helped them with valuable insights and guided them on exactly how fiber is extracted from bananas.

Taruwar Agro was finally launched in 2021.

Jagat said, “We put together all our savings - a total of Rupees 15 lakhs and took a 10,000 sq ft space in Hajipur. This would become our factory.” 

While the entrepreneurs had to buy two extractor machines themselves, the third one was a grant from Krishi Vigyan Kendra. Taruwar Agro was about to become a perfect example of converting waste into wealth.

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ROADBLOCKS 

Initially, when Taruwar Agro started operating at ground-level, things were difficult. But Jagat and his friends never expected them to be easy in the first place. 

Jagat explained the initial challenges by telling us, “In the beginning, educating the farmers on the importance of banana stems was a huge challenge. They didn't know that the stems could fetch them an income too. Traditionally, they had been selling the main banana fruit and throwing away the stems.” 

Convincing them to sell the banana stems to Taruwar was also another obstacle. 

Jagat Kalyan said, “Labourers and farmers on the ground-level are often following one way of business. They approach change with rigidity. We held many conversations with them. We knew that faith cannot be bought and the farmers had to trust us. For that, we gave them their sweet time. Eventually, they started selling the stems to us for a price between Rs 5 to Rs 25.”

Also Read: Meet Punjab Man Who Earns ₹15 Lakh Per Acre From Dragon Fruit Farming

Then came the issues attached to transportation. Banana trees are very bulky and weigh around 70 kgs to 80 kgs. 

“I started by taking the trees myself. We then used a minivan and a tractor. Our transportation costs soared but we didn't really have much of a choice. It was part of the journey,” Jagat told Startup Pedia.

TARUWAR AGRO’S GROWTH

Once the stems reached the factory, Taruwar started employing labourers who would work on the machines. They didn't really require skilled workers, so they chose to give employment to unskilled workers and train them on the machinery processes.

From extracting the fibre to drying and then peeling it - everything was taught from scratch. The next step was looking for buyers of the now ready banana fibre. 

Banana fibre was divided into two parts:

1. Combed fibre - to be used in textiles and clothes

2. Uncombed fibre - to be used in sanitary pads and handcrafted materials. 

Jagat says, “We had to search for buyer links. Satyam, Nitish, and I contacted our network links and even looked up buyer names on the Internet. Our perfect customers would be the ones using banana fibre in their final product process. For example, paper industries, sustainable and organic sanitary pad makers and eco-friendly textile manufacturers who were replacing synthetic fibre with banana fibre. In more ways than one, Taruwar had taken a B2B approach.”

What started with just 4 workers has now turned into a startup that employs 10 local women and 6 men in its unit.

“We always have 60% women employees and 40% male employees in the unit,” Kalyan mentioned. Taruwar Agro is connected to over 15 farmers who regularly supply banana stems to the company. 

Jagat also added, “Today our buyers buy at least 500 kgs of banana fibre from us. This is on a monthly basis.” Taruwar Agro is maintaining a zero waste approach in all its processes.

Talking about the same, Jagat said, “When we take out fibre from the banana stem, pulp also comes out. We decided to make jaivikkhad from it - made of 75% banana fibre. It is rich is all the banana nutrients. This vermicompost is 3 times more effective than the regular one.”

Additionally, from the pulp, the startup takes out banana concentrated liquid which is rich in micronutrients and potassium. This is converted into a fertilizer that is as effective as the chemical fertilizer but has way fewer disadvantages.

Taruwar Agro is also making baked makhana snacks in different flavours and selling to wholesalers and retailers across the country. 

The startup also exports its banana fibre, vermicompost, and snacks to Europe, Japan, and Dubai.

In FY24, the startup clocked a turnover of Rs 50 lakhs. This is expected to double in FY25.

LOOKING AHEAD

Taruwar Agro plans to further use the remaining core stem of the banana and aims to solve health issues of diabetes, blood pressure, and kidney stones with it. Work is underway regarding this.

The team has also innovated banana leather products like files, folders, and purses. There is a banana yarn as well that can be used in temples as the thread.