Elaneer made easy
CHENNAI: All it takes is a little bit of technology and plenty of will to make available the elusive elaneer at your doorstep it seems. For that’s what you get with the launch of Sowkea Agro’s Tender Springz Coconut Water. Now, you can pick one up at the neighbourhood supermarket or have it delivered to your house — all dehusked and ready to drink.
Banking on small-scale farmers in the coconut-rich grounds of Pollachi and a minimalistic processing technique, the company assures a shelf-life of 20 days for Tender Springz. Launched on Sunday at The Leela Palace by actor Vijay Sethupathi and Sowkea Agro’s founder and CEO, RB Sivakumar, the product is available for consumption of people all across Tamil Nadu. In a few months, Bengaluru and Hyderabad folks too can savour it.
While appeasing the elaneer-lover seems to be the motivation behind the venture, there’s much more heart behind finding a way to contribute to agricultural fair trade. For Sivakumar, whose education was funded by the failing farmlands that his parents had to sell, this was a plan always in the making. “We focus on individual, small-scale farmers, offering them a long-term contract and a stable procurement price for the entire year. If you look at coconut procurement price, it changes with every season. And you also have middlemen downsizing the income that farmers get. But we have offered them a large advance too,” he shares.
Such an effort becomes all the more vital when the pandemic and subsequent series of lockdowns made it impossible for coconut farmers to sell their produce the usual way. While many suffered loses, those associated with Sowkea Agro managed to stay afloat, he points out. It is for this reason that Sowkea Agro would continue to be a bridge between the farmer and the consumer.
Tender Springz, priced at Rs 60 (300 ml), is available at supermarkets across the city and can be ordered from sowkea.com and Sowkea Doorstep Daily app.