KOCHI: Kashmir has been known world around for the snow-clad mountains, chilly weather and red, delicious apples. Now, the valley, known as Paradise on Earth, is all set to introduce another product outside the state. Three students from Kashmir have set up a startup to market Himalayan trout, a fish species similar to the Atlantic salmon in taste and colour, across the country. The fish will be initially introduced in Kerala.
Kashmir produces around 600 tonnes of trout a year and there are 533 units of trout farms and 59 trout rearing units in the state. Though the fish is a much sought after delicacy in the Himalayan state, they could not explore the outside market as Kashmir remained isolated from the country for decades. Syed Faayiz Qadri, Rifat Amin, natives of Kashmir, and Saurav P Satish, a youth from Bengaluru, were pursuing Naropa Fellowship on entrepreneurial leadership in Kashmir when they noticed the hurdles faced by the fish farmers in reaching the customers.
The trio visited the fish farms to understand the problems of farmers and contacted the Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT) in Kochi to explore the possibility of exploring the market outside the state. They attended a one-month course at CIFT on improved techniques of fish processing and entrepreneurship development after which they were introduced to FreshtoHome, an online platform with a customer base of 17 lakh.
“The Himalayan trout tastes like Atlantic salmon which is an expensive species. Though government support has helped increase production, the farmers are not able to reach beyond the state borders. Our aim was to address the woes of the local fish farmers and the training at CIFT has given us confidence to reach out to the customers in metro cities. We have formed a startup called Zarin and have to start from scrambles,” said Syed Faayiz Qadri.
The students have reached an agreement with FreshtoHome for marketing the fish. FreshtoHome has also offered to provide logistic support to the students. “Though it is considered a delicacy, we have to create a market when we introduce the fish species outside Kashmir. The fish has high nutritional value and an initial survey revealed that there is potential in north Indian states. The first sample will be arriving next week and we will provide them training in packaging. For transportation we will offer our logistics channel,” said FreshtoHome Chief Operating Officer Mathew Joseph.