Marc\u2019s grandfather and\u00a0 mother were Indians. He was born in Pune, and schooled in Pune and <\/p> In the early 90s, Marc teamed up with a few friends to start an IT company. He proposed to his partners that he could handle the programming part sitting in <\/p> Green Tokri decided to specialize in Salads. Why Salads? Chances of undercutting by other farmers is less. Into affordable salads \u2013 not just for the top 1% of Pune\u2019s population. And salads that are not grown between railway tracks \u2013 so you don\u2019t need to sterilize them. Even today salads form 70% of Green Tokri\u2019s business. But Benedict, Marc\u2019s wife recommended diversification. Processed food manufacturing helps take care of fluctuations in production. So now Green Tokri also does processed food like dressings. The farm has more fruits now \u2013 as a result it is less of monoculture.<\/span><\/p> <\/p> Green Tokri is still relatively small \u2013 It is a 50 people company, with 30 people employed at the 3 farms in Saswad, about 25 km away from Pune. In 20 km time travel of 500 years is achieved. The difference in culture was a big challenge for Marc when he became a full timer at Green Tokri. What he found funny was the backward bending supply of labour. No one wants to do overtime, in spite of all his employees being shareholders in the company. The 30 farm employees are basically from just 3 families \u2013 so there is very good teamwork. The big problems start when there are marriages in any of the family \u2013 which leads to mass absenteeism! <\/span><\/p> <\/p> Saswad is in rain shadow region \u2013 so water is a problem. The land is barren \u2013 the insects also love the salads \u2013 there doesn\u2019t seem to be too much choice around, especially in summers. Marc aimed to be an organic farmer, but found it to be difficult, so he uses a minimal levels of fertilizers and pesticides. One of his biggest learnings has been from one of his biggest failures \u2013 a 1.7 cr liter water tank, which stores water only when it is not needed \u2013 and in the summers is absolutely dry. So Green Tokri is at the forefront of water optimization. The stats for water efficiency in agriculture go something like this: For 1 kg of salad \u2013 conventional agriculture requires 3,000 ltr; Drip irrigation requires 300 ltr and Hydroponics requires 38 ltr. So the company uses hydroponic cultivation today. <\/span><\/p> <\/p> Marc believes that marketing is his Achilles heel. So he now spends 3 days every week in Pune to hit the market and network. As a part of his marketing plan, he has also got into agro-tourism, where customers are invited to the farm to spend a day. He even used to get them to harvest their own salads \u2013 but that experiment was not very fruitful. Customers are sold the produce through 3 channels \u2013 direct to customer, modern retail and institutional. Mark finds retail the best for getting instatenous feedback. Also the first customer out of Pune has been signed up recently \u2013 in Mumbai<\/span><\/p> <\/p> Marc\u2019s business philosophy \u2013 always have partners. Avoid banks, if possible. (Though he countered that with an example of a competitor of his in the IT business \u2013 who took on a much larger bank loan that ITB, Mark\u2019s company. He also sold out his company \u2013 but at a valuation which was 10 times that of ITB.) His advice for entrepreneurs with multiple businesses – Each business needs to live by itself. Marc runs a regular internship program, which he finds very beneficial \u2013 since it allows others to question his practices. And finally Marc feels that if were to start all over again \u2013 would invest in renewables. Solar electricity is happening at Saswad this year..<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"