This Man Introduced Aloe Vera to Rajasthan—Now Earns ₹1 Cr Annually

Imagine having an inclination to do something of your own since college. Now imagine failing at it multiple times. 

Most would’ve given up and talked themselves out of it. 

Others would have questioned their decisions in the first place and regretted them.

But only a handful would come back at it again, start from scratch, and make a multi-crore empire out of it.

This is the story of Rakesh Choudhary, the founder of Vinayak Agro Herbal Limited.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Rakesh comes from a small village in the Kuchaman City of the state of Rajasthan.

Always an academically bright student, Rakesh did his BSc degree from the Maharaja College, Rajasthan. He also finished his BCA course.

Rakesh’s father grew traditional crops on a small piece of land.

But Rakesh always thought that there was so much more to explore.

In 2003, along with his studies, he started working in the realm of medicinal plants.

This happened when he was in Jaipur. 

In an exlusive interview with Startup Pedia, he explains, “A friend of mine had got me in touch with the Rajasthan Medicinal Plant Board. These were the initial days of the Board as it had only gotten set up recently. The main objective was to encourage farmers to get into contractual farming and switch to growing medicinal plants.”

Rakesh started training with the Board and eventually was given the responsibility of doing on-field work of mobilizing local farmers, understanding their pain points, and convincing them to start contract farming with medicinal plants.

In those days, the medicinal plant space was extremely disorganized. Farmers weren’t very interested in switching from their traditional crops and had no clue how to market them either.

But the Board had sanctioned a project that no other rural yojana was able to pull off. Here, the subsidy was greater than the loan.

The project consisted of just 10% bank loan and offered a 30% subsidy with the promoters’ share as 60%.

Rakesh’s interest in the medicinal plant domain had only been piqued. He started working part-time along with studying for his graduation degrees.

Primarily, he would prepare farmer projects, assist them in getting pre-appraisals, and help them with all sorts of issues.

INITIAL JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES 

After working with the Board for some time, Rakesh now wanted to replicate the same experiments on his own farmland.

He was just 20 years old at that time.

Explaining his first venture, Rakesh says, “I held long discussions with my father and ultimately convinced him to divert from traditional crops to medicinal plants. I had gained some experience already, so he didn’t hesitate that much.”

Rakesh and his family received a subsidy of Rupees 1,90,000 for beginning to grow medicinal plants.

But a big shock awaited them.

In 2004, during the harvest season, Rakesh saw that the plants had failed. 

The major reason was that he had selected crops that weren’t aligned with the climatic conditions of the place. Hence, the result was very disappointing.

Remembering his first failure, Rakesh says, “I remember feeling bad for a brief point of time. But since the beginning, I have had a solution-oriented approach towards things. As soon as I recognized my mistake in crop selection, I immersed myself in deeper research and came out with plants like Amla, Isabgol, Aloe Vera, Bel Patra, etc.”

In 2005, the family had a great harvest. But the next challenge was marketing the plants and finding clients to buy them.

Rakesh started reaching out to vendors through his mobile phone. At that time, the Internet didn’t give as much speed as it does today. But Rakesh was relentless.

He would type out keywords like ‘Aloe Vera Supplier’ on Google and try to seek out contact information.

In 2006, he got his first customer for Aloe Vera. The order came from a manufacturing unit in Chandigarh.

Soon after, a Bombay-based manufacturing company came to Rakesh’s village and asked to set up their processing unit there. They were impressed by the samples he had sent them earlier.

This was India’s first Aloe Vera processing unit in North India. More than 90 rural women got employment and things began to look hopeful for Rakesh.

In 2007, he registered his business as Raj Herbal Biotech and came out as a manufacturer. Primarily, his team kept working with Aloe Vera.

They grew 255+ varieties of the plant.

But just two years later, in 2009, the Bombay manufacturing company parted ways with Rakesh.

Rakesh lost all his capital and his operations shut down.

When asked about this period, he says, “For about 4 to 6 months, I was at a loss as to what to do from here. Everything looked bleak. But we still had a lot of produce that we needed to sell. I kept trying to reach out to small vendors with my phone and Internet. It was during this time that I met Patanjali too. Eventually, we started supplying batches to small vendors across the country.”

This was not the end of disappointment for Rakesh.

He decided to venture into the space of biolocals but failed miserably.

It was on the 12th February of 2014 that Rakesh Choudhary had a net worth of minus Rs 5.5 lakh.

VINAYAK AGRO HERBAL LIMITED 

Giving up was never on the plan for Rakesh.

In 2014, he took the blessings of Lord Ganesh and started from scratch.

He registered Vinayak Herbal (which was later launched as Vinayak Agro Herbal Limited in 2021).

“Since I didn’t have anything, my wife gave me her gold jewellery to keep as collateral for a loan I had applied to. The loan was against my father’s pension as well,” Rakesh adds.

He decided to zero down on Aloe Vera as the core product and very soon, Vinayak Herbal became an A to Z solution for the medicinal plant.

Eventually, Rakesh also started growing as a social entrepreneur. His vision was to convert the farmer’s waste into wealth. He expanded his model of medicinal farming and helped farmers adapt it.

In 2021, Vinayak Herbal Agro Limited was launched as a 100% organic and official supplier of Aloe Vera and other medicinal plants. 

GROWTH AND SUCCESS

Today, Rakesh’s tehsil has 22 GST-registered companies in medicinal plant farming and supplying.

From just one block, the village grosses a total turnover of Rs 30 crore every year.

From collecting medicinal plants to cultivating and supplying them - these companies do it all.

Rakesh says, “I feel very satisfied that I have made this possible in this small village and its neighbouring areas. So many youngsters are involved in these companies and are making good money too. This was always the kind of social impact that I wanted to create.”

In FY24, Vinayak Agro Herbal Limited generated a revenue of Rupees 1 crore 30 lakhs.

The startup’s products range from raw Aloe Vera extract to organic herbs, powders, and pastes.

The company supplies its products to Himalaya, Dabur, Patanjali, and other natural and Ayurvedic names in the country.

THE THREE-STEP FORMULA

According to Rakesh Choudhary, 3 factors determine your success or failure in the medicinal farming business.

1. The first is crop selection. If that’s not done according to the climate of your region, you are bound to fail. A lot of research must go into making this decision.

2. The second is to get quality planting material for your crops at fair prices. If your input cost is too much and your agrotechnique isn’t refined, you won’t make it.

3. Knowing how to market your products is very important. Taking the effort to physically go to companies and meet vendors is important. This builds trust from both sides.

LOOKING AHEAD

In the near future, Vinayak Agro Herbal Limited will be setting up more foundations to help farmers. One of these is the Krishi Doot Vikas Foundation that aims to double the income of farmers.

Rakesh Choudhary and his team will also be earning carbon credits along with numerous farmers. The plan is to especially work in the spaces of rainwater harvesting and bioenergy. 

Rakesh’s startup has also planted and distributed 1 lakh neem plants. The team aims to continue doing the same.