Wednesday, August 3, 2011

The Pitch

Fenugreen takes biodegradable food packaging to market

Fenugreen
Headquarters: Cambridge   
Founded: 2010
Email: swaroop@fenugreen.com   
URL: www.fenugreen.com
Phone: 413-244-7252   
Employees: 3

In the company’s own words: “Fenugreen FreshPaper is a patented, all-natural, biodegradable food packaging that extends the shelf-life of fresh produce by two to four times. Fenugreen is made of organic botanical extracts that have been shown to inhibit bacterial/fungal growth and degradative enzymes that cause food spoilage. Fenugreen seeks to address the massive, yet often overlooked, global challenge of food spoilage (25% of the world’s food supply lost to spoilage, amounting to $450 billion in losses). Fenugreen was invented by co-founder and CEO Kavita M. Shukla who developed and patented this technology while in high school, based on a home remedy.”

About the technology: The inspiration for Fenugreen came when Shukla visited India. “In middle school, many years ago, I was visiting my grandmother in India and while I was brushing teeth I swallowed some tap water. In India you are not supposed to drink tap water at all. My grandmother told me not to worry. She worked up this murky brown solution of different herbs and spices and said, ‘Drink this you won’t get sick’, and I was OK,” said Shukla. That solution held an antibiotic effect, she added. After several years of R&D with the core elements of that solution, Shukla was awarded a patent for the technology behind Fenugreen’s FreshPaper, a sheet of paper that is inserted into any storage container holding produce.

The people behind the company: Shukla, 26, was working at Harvard Business School writing essays and case studies. She had considered starting a non-profit organization to utilize her invention in remote villages of India and Africa where spoilage is a problem. One of her essays focused on those ideas for using her technology and her regret for not having started that non-profit. “I didn’t really have what I thought of as the skills for creating a non-profit. At 16 you don’t have an understanding of the resources required to distribute throughout the world,” she said. Swaroop Samant, 31, was a physician working as a consultant for McKinsey & Co. when he saw Shukla’s essay about her technology. The two co-founded Fenugreen with the idea that FreshPaper technology not only could be applied in remote regions of the world but in highly developed areas where organic produce is popular.

The target market: Fenugreen wants to sell FreshPaper to consumers through organizations such as Harvest Co-op Markets in Boston and Cambridge. However, they also see opportunity in selling to retailers or distributors of organic produce and organic farmers who can’t use traditional methods or chemicals on their produce.

The Pitch: Fenugreen is looking to add a distribution partner each week, whether they are retailers or farmers. Their ideal partners, Shukla said, “share our values” on growing and selling organic produce.

Existing affiliations and partnerships: Cartier Women’s Initiative (co-sponsored by McKinsey & Co., INSEAD and the Women’s Forum), the MassChallenge Global Startup Competition, the Swiss Consulate, the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Alumni Association, the Lemelson-MIT Foundation and The Home Depot.

The competition: “NatureSeal, a blend of vitamins and minerals targeted to consumers and the foodservice industry, that claims to extend the shelf life of fresh-cut produce by inhibiting respiration and the oxidation process. Fenugreen’s advantage over NatureSeal, however, is its ability act at a distance (e.g., food does not have to be coated), its anti-microbial properties, and its lower cost of production. Indirect competitors include niche natural/environmentally friendly packaging companies (e.g., Earthcycle Packaging, EnviroPAK Corp., Innovia Films, NatureWorks LLC), agro-chemical and coatings/materials players (e.g., Syngenta, DuPont, 3M), and refrigeration companies (e.g. Trane, Carrier, McQuay).”

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