The journey began when floods hit the Uttarakhand Hills. In 2013, I was in Delhi, but the disaster pushed me to help the affected women. Using my educational background - a graduate degree in chemistry and botany, and a post graduate degree in business management, to find a solution to help the affected women by mushroom farming. I moved back to Dehradun to start the experiment with an initial investment of INR 2,000. In the same year I founded Hanzen International, a mushroom farming venture on 1.5 acres of land by setting up ten huts with 500 bags in each of them.
After being in the industry for a few years I observed that button and Oyster Mushrooms are the most common ones but there is not much conversation regarding the medicinal benefits of mush in the rooms, so I introduced Medicinal mushrooms like Shiitake Ganoderma and Lion’s mane to the Indian market. We were importing these mushrooms from China. To spread awareness about medical mushrooms I started taking webinars, and seminars & training regarding the same, I collaborated with many colleges and universities regarding awareness and entrepreneurship among students by providing them training and motivating them to take up entrepreneurship and be job creators.
Over the years, I have supported more than 5,000 women in the region to gain sustainable livelihood & increased their income by double, building a food processing unit & coming up with a value-added product range and selling it in the state of Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana & Uttar Pradesh.
Problem: - Due to an aging population and illness due to current lifestyles, health-related concerns are becoming more important. Moreover, today's society is more aware of the potential side effects of medicines and is looking for innovative therapeutic alternatives. Hence the use of natural compounds presents in medicinal mushrooms for various diseases and health maintenance. After COVID, people are undergoing mental stress, sleep disorders, and depression. There is also lack of cultivation of medicinal mushrooms and little or no extraction in making functional food and nutraceutical products.
Solution: - Medicinal mushrooms are a superfood well known for their nutritional value and health-promoting properties like anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, and antioxidant. They are considered both functional foods and a rich source of nutraceuticals, which can be very useful for pregnant women, kids, teenagers, old people, and cancer patients.
We convert agro waste into food. We are into a blend of agriculture, food processing, and biotechnology of medicinal mushrooms like shitake, ganoderma, lion's mane, etc. In agriculture, we grow varieties of mushrooms. In food processing, we make products from these mushrooms like tea, coffee, sauce, ginger ale, cookies, soup, pickles, nuggets, papad, protein powder, mushroom sprinkles, etc. In biotech, we make extracts and use these extracts for functional foods and nutraceuticals.
Social Impact: - Breaking the stereotypes for increasing agricultural productivity by bringing technology and mechanization to farming communities, introducing them in the new era of modern farming, revolutionizing the medicinal mushroom industry and empowering women, landless farmers, tribals, and communities across India. With a technology-enabled platform currently providing complete end-to-end services to more than 5,000 Indian farmers from “Seed to Market” with an aim to expand to a million by 2024.
Encouraging Employment: - We help women, farmers, and landless farmers by empowering them and making them self-employed by giving them training, mentoring, technical support, and buying back produce from them, thus providing the market. We help them by developing their skills and increasing their per capita income. Apart from mushrooms, we also teach them hygiene and do volunteer work to uplift their standard of living.
Represented Govt of India in the APO meet in Singapore in August 2023
Represented Govt of India in the Bangkok Expo backed by Embassy of Thailand in July 2023.
Selected by Niti Ayog – Govt of India as the top 75 Innovative Company of India – A Compendium was inaugurated by Honourable Amit Shah on Home Ministry Portal.
Selected in top 25 Women for Ambassador Programmed by Goldman Sachs and ISB – 2019
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