Sunday, June 30, 2019

Cafe Womaniya: Women-led Food & Snack Cafes and Kiosks in Government Offices

Café Womaniya, is “a food retail initiative to promote food & beverage products made exclusively by women entrepreneurs, at snack kiosks and dining areas in Government offices”. These cafés/ kiosks will deliver low-fat, nutrient-rich, cookies, crackers, Indian snacks/ meals, assorted pickles, condiments, tea/ coffee bags and organic food products, and foster consumption of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts.

Hyper-local procurement of food and beverage products by Government offices will result in new and untapped economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Further, low-cost, high-volume, high-utility orders will ensure economies of scale for women enterprises, and ensure fresh foods at all times due to “Just-In-Time” inventory practices.

Most importantly, healthy meal choices at Café Womaniya will reduce intake of free sugars, and salt/ sodium, and limit energy intake from total fats, by shifting consumption of fat from saturated fats to unsaturated fats and eliminating use of trans-fatty acids; some of the primary drivers for early onset of non-communicable diseases such as Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease, in India.

PRESENT SCENARIO

Rising incomes, rapid urbanization, and globalization are influencing the nutritional consumption patterns of masses. Increased access to convenient foods from modern retailers at competitively low prices is further driving people to reach out for unhealthy foods [Popkin, Adair & Ng, 2012, Popkin, 1998; Popkin, 1999; Allender et al., 2010, Arokiasamy & Yadav, 2013].

In India, the modern food retail market grew by a whopping 49 percent from 2001 to 2010 [Reardon & Minten, 2011] and nutrition researchers estimate that 80-85 percent of Indians consume commercially processed foods [Reardon & Minten, 2011; Gupta et al., 2010, Misra et al., 2011] which reflects a significant shift from consumption of nutrient-rich foods to energy-dense processed foods, increased intake of meats and salt and a net decrease in intake of coarse cereals, fruits, and vegetables. Further, availability and accessibility of high-calorie foods in urban areas in comparison to rural areas, has resulted in higher rates of obesity and diabetes, in cities [Popkin, Adair & Ng, 2012, Popkin, 1998; Popkin, 1999; Reardon & Minten, 2011].

CHALLENGE

According to the International Diabetes Foundation, approximately 33 percent of adults with Diabetes remain undiagnosed [Bloom et al., 2014]. The annual number of deaths resulting from Diabetes increased two-fold from 100,000 in 1990 to 233,999 in 2010. By 2012, India had more than 63 million people suffering from Type 2 Diabetes, earning it the tag of being the “Diabetes Capital of the World”.

Unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity are key drivers for the rise in non-communicable diseases [NCD]. According to WHO, High blood pressure, high concentrations of cholesterol in the blood, inadequate intake of fruit and vegetables, overweight or obesity, lack of physical activity, alcohol and tobacco use, are some of the other factors for NCD [WHO, 2004] .

PROPOSED INTERVENTION

Public offices are synonymous with vintage canteens offering deep-fried snacks and tea coffee to staff and visitors. Café Womaniya will prod public offices to set up Café’/ Kiosk Womaniya which will offer nutrient-rich food & snacks and meals, designed and produced by women entrepreneurs, to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts.

The key goal will be to limit intake of free sugars, and salt/ sodium, and limit energy intake from total fats, shift fat consumption away from saturated fats to unsaturated fats and eliminate use of trans-fatty acids.

STEPS TO SETUP CAFÉ WOMANIYA

Café/ tea and coffee pantry are run in every Government ministry, department and organization operates pantry/ café to prepare and serve light snacks and beverages to office staff. GeM operates a food kiosk which sells branded chips and cookies along with deep-fried Indian snacks, aerated beverages and bottled water.

Café Womaniya will encourage Government offices to procure low-fat, nutrient-rich, cookies, crackers, Indian snacks/ meals, pickles, tea/ coffee bags and organic food products that are available on GeM Womaniya page [https://gem.gov.in/womaniya] and stack for display/ sale to employees. Food products made by women entrepreneurs will be served in meetings and conferences, and employees can be incentivized to procure the same through staff food coupons.

Canteen services are a much-desired service in Government offices and women entrepreneurs will be encouraged to take up annual contracts for rendering such services. GeM is in touch with NGOs to handhold women entrepreneurs with training and skill development for canteen services. Popular regional and local delicacies may gradually replace branded chips and cookies, aerated beverages and deep-friend Indian snacks.

IMPACT

Economic

Café Womaniya will spur hyper-local employment and economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs in 60+ Government Ministries, departments, autonomous organizations and 300+ central public sector enterprise offices in Delhi NCR region.

Several Government institutions such as Ministry of Railways, Defence, Home, and Personnel and Training, are large buyers of food products. 3 percent mandatory procurement of supplies from women entrepreneurs will generate sustainable livelihoods for approx. 3,000-5,000 women representing low-income families in Delhi NCR region, alone.

Social

Since, dietary habits and patterns are rooted in local and regional traditions, Café Womaniya will prod grass-roots mobilization and advocacy for healthy dietary behaviour among Government employees, support wide dissemination of information related to prevention of non-communicable diseases through balanced diets and healthy lifestyles.

Café Womaniya will underline the role of Government in promoting public health, healthy diets and physical activity, and assist Government ministries, departments and organizations in meeting their mandatory 3 percent procurement, from Women entrepreneurs and SHGs.

Environmental

Hyper-local procurement of food will ensure shorter travel time for transporting fruits and vegetables from farm-to-fork. Delivery of farm fresh quality of fresh fruits and vegetables, in terms of shape, size, appearance and texture, will start reaching end-consumers and this will reduce carbon and water footprint during food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and disposal stages.

Gender Equality

Decisions about food and nutrition are determined by women and influenced by culture and traditional diets.

Economic empowerment of women entrepreneurs through opportunities within public procurement will address the twin challenges of malnutrition/ nutritional deficiencies and gender-violence, faced by women.

Café Womaniya aligns with SDG #5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by enabling the use of technology, especially ICT to promote empowerment of women, and SDG #8 Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value by promoting development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of MSME enterprises, including through access to financial services.

ABOUT US

Government e Marketplace [GeM] is an open, inclusive marketplace for procurement of common use goods and services by Government ministries, departments and CPSEs. The platform provides great opportunity to SHGs, women entrepreneurs, artisans, NGOs, Startups and other sectors to register, list and sell their products to government buyers. Women entrepreneurs face numerous difficulties in accessing public procurement markets and GeM has taken several proactive initiatives to facilitate the training and registrations of such specific category of manufacturers/ sellers.

The online platform offers end-to-end solution for procurement of common use goods and services by Government ministries, departments and CPSEs. GeM was setup in 2016 and has 1,026,764 product categories, with 246,237 registered sellers and 36,596 government buyers. Since inception, GeM has processed 19.63 lac orders worth 26,963 Crores in Gross Merchandise Value.

CREDITS

The author is indebted to Ms. S. Radha Chauhan, CEO GeM, Shri S Suresh Kumar, Additional CEO GeM and Dr. Rajeev Kandpal, CFO and Additional CEO GeM, and dear colleagues at GeM for their valuable support and inputs during the compilation of Project Startup Runway.

Special thanks to co-author Anohita, for her rich research, edits, proof-reads and kind support.

REFERENCES

Allender, S., et al. (2010). Level of urbanization and non-communicable disease risk factors in Tamil Nadu, India. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 88(ISSUE), 297–304.

Arokiasamy, P., et al. (2014). Longitudinal aging study in India: biomarker data documentation. RAND Working Paper WR-1043. Accessed 20 August 2014, from http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/WR1000/WR1043/RAND_WR1043.pdf.

Bloom, D.E., Cafiero-Fonseca E.T., Candeias V, Adashi E., Bloom L., Gurfein L., Jané-Llopis E., Lubet, A., Mitgang E, Carroll O’Brien J, Saxena A (2014). Economics of Non-Communicable Diseases in India: The Costs and Returns on Investment of Interventions to Promote Healthy Living and Prevent, Treat, and Manage NCDs. World Economic Forum, Harvard School of Public Health, 2014.

et al. (2010). Imbalanced dietary profile, anthropometry, and lipids in urban Asian Indian adolescents and young adults. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 29(2), 81–91.

International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS). (2007). National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005-06. Mumbai: International Institute for Population Sciences.

Misra, A., et al. (2011). Nutrition transition in India: secular trends in dietary intake and their relationship to diet-related non-communicable diseases. Journal of Diabetes, 3(4), 278–292.

Popkin, B. M., Adair, L. S., & Ng, S. W. (2012). Global nutrition transition and the pandemic of obesity in developing countries. Nutrition Reviews, 70(1), 3–21.

Popkin, B. M. (1998). The nutrition transition and its health implication in lower-income countries. Public Health Nutrition, 1(1), 5–21.

Popkin, B. M. (1999). Urbanization, lifestyle changes, and the nutrition transition. World Development, 27(11), 1905–1916.

Reardon, T., & Minten, B. (2011). The quiet revolution in India’s food supply chains. IFPRI Discussion Paper Number 01115. International Food Policy Research Institute. Accessed 20 August 2014, from http:// www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01115.pdf.

World Health Organization, (2004). Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health. Accessed 16 March 2019, from https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/strategy/eb11344/strategy_english_web.pdf

Sunday, June 16, 2019

Startup Runway on Government eMarketplace [GeM]

“Startup Runway on GeM” [https://gem.gov.in/startup_runway], is an initiative for Startups certified by Department for Promotion of Industrial and Internal Trade [DPIIT], Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, to engage with Government buyers and explore opportunities in public procurement. GeM Startup Runway seeks to align certified Startups with Government procurement orders and contracts, to enable Startups in scaling operations from ideation to growth stage in minimal time, and spur hyper-local job-creation and wealth-generation, for achieving socially-inclusive economic growth [1].

Since public procurement accounts for as much as 10-15 percent of GDP in developed countries and more than 30 percent in developing countries, Government buyers are required to ensure high quality and reasonableness of price, and therefore rely on documentation to ensure their adherence to procurement guidelines and regulations [2]. Government of India has relaxed norms in Public Procurement for Startups by exempting them from prior experience, prior turnover and Earnest Money Deposit [EMD] stipulations [3], subject to meeting of quality and technical specifications.

While, product comparison and price discovery are two major challenges for Government buyers in procuring innovative products from Startups, common constraints in public procurement such as lengthy sales cycle, complex processes and significant effort, adverse Government experience and revolving agency contacts act as detriment for Startups to partake in public procurement who are constantly challenged to earn recurring revenues, raise capital, boost valuation and find the right market fit [4].

Startup Runway will enable Startups to conduct market trials with government buyers, seek time-bound feedback and gain realistic product, price comparison and market valuation from potential buyers and investors.

Certified Startups will register on GeM portal as a seller with their DPIIT number, provide basic description about the performance of their products/ services along with the Test Certificates of quality, their functional utility and specify potential user Ministry/ departments where these products can be used.

On Startup Runway, 12 key sub-sectors or areas namely; Artificial Intelligence [AI], Big Data and Analytics, Block Chain, Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics [Next Gen IoT, 3D Printing], Agtech, Fintech [IoT], Health and Life Sciences [Biopharma, Medtech, Digital Health], Cybersecurity, Cleantech, Edtech, Virtual/ Augmented Reality [Mobile and eSports], Adtech and Consumer Electronics, have been mapped to broadly classify Startups who are applying innovation and driving new areas of economic activities [4].

Relevant Ministries/ departments will be sensitised proactively through system generated messages/ alerts in Marketplace about availability of such innovative products on the portal. Potential buyers can evaluate these products/ services with respect to their utility, uniqueness with respect to design, process and concept, and provide feedback in a time-bound interval and manner. Innovative products with 3+ ratings on a rating scale of (1-5) from 3 or more buyers will be accepted for listing as a regular product/ service on GeM.

India has approximately 500 million Internet users and demographic characteristics of these users reveal that nearly 54 percent of users are more than 25 years of age with higher discretionary income and likely to transact more online, half of internet users reside in Tier-2 cities and small towns, and present new opportunities for e-commerce [5]. Most importantly, women constitute 33 percent or 143 million Internet users who, research extensively online for apparel and accessories that are not available in their towns, have a high degree of digital influence in their product purchase cycle and control 44 percent of household spending in India [6].

At the recently concluded The Next Web Conference [https://thenextweb.com/] in Amsterdam, 6 countries were acknowledged for incorporating initiatives to promote Startups in Public Procurement, and Startup Runway from India was one among them. Presently, 1,862 Startups are registered on GeM and have received 7,697 orders worth Rs 275 crores.

GeM Startup Runway seeks to support technology development, spur research and innovation by ensuring a conducive policy environment for industrial diversification and value addition to commodities, and aligns with Government’s philosophy to turn Job-seekers into Job-creators. GeM Startup Runway will address goals and objectives under United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation [7].

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” ― Joseph Campbell

CREDITS

The author is indebted to Ms. S. Radha Chauhan, CEO GeM, Dr. Rajeev Kandpal, CFO and Additional CEO GeM, Shri S Suresh Kumar, Additional CEO GeM and dear GeM colleagues for their valuable guidance and inputs during the compilation of Project Startup Runway.

Special thanks to Nishant Malhotra, Senior Manager, Startup India and my colleague Sparsh Agarwal for their rich inputs and kind support.

REFERENCES

[1] Bajpai, S., Jain, N., & Kanchan, S. (2015, April 23). The Changing Connected Consumer in India. Retrieved March 15, 2018, Retrieved from The Boston Consulting Group website https://www.bcg.com/publications/2015/globalization-technology-digital-changing-connected-consumer-in-india.aspx

[2] Kim, D. (2016). Why should you care about public procurement reform? [Blog] Our Perspectives. Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2016/12/15/Why-should-you-care-about-public-procurement- reforms-.html [Accessed 16 Jun. 2019].

[3] Startup India, Department of Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. (n.d.). Action Plan - Notifications. Retrieved August 23, 2018, from https://www.startupindia.gov.in/notification.php

[4] Startup Genome. (2018, April). All Reports – Startup Genome. Retrieved August 15, 2018, from https://startupgenome.com/report2018/

[5] Internet and Mobile Association of India. (2018). Internet Users Projected to Cross 500 Million by June 2018: Retrieved March 16, 2018 from IAMAI website: http://www.iamai.in/media/details/4990

[6] Bajpai, S., Jain, N., & Kanchan, S. (2015, April 23). The Changing Connected Consumer in India. Retrieved March 15, 2018, Retrieved from The Boston Consulting Group websitehttps://www.bcg.com/publications/2015/globalization-technology-digital- changing-connected-consumer-in-india.aspx

[7] United Nations India. (n.d.). Poverty and Urbanisation - UN India. Retrieved from http://in.one.un.org/poverty-and-urbanisation/