Fenugreen: Changing the Way We Eat Started by Kavita Shukla

 

Kavita Shukla is the founder and CEO of Fenugreen, which is a company and an inventor of its own core product, Freshpaper, that uses a technology which aims at keeping fruits and vegetables fresh for longer. At an age when most of the girls were experimenting with eyeliners in the middle school, Kavita Shukla was experimenting with ways to change how the world eats. Read to know more about her success story.

How did she get started?

Kavita was visiting her grandmother in India when she accidentally swallowed tap water while brushing teeth. She panicked, but her grandmother produced a mixture of herbs and spices for Shukla to drink and she didn’t fall sick. She was fascinated by her grandmother’s wisdom and when she returned home to the US, she began experimenting with the effects of various spices, by dipping strawberries into them to find out what prevented bacteria and fungus from growing. After competing in an international science fair, judges took notice of her project and advised her to protect her research. So at the age of 17, she got a patent for FreshPaper, a sheet of paper infused with a secret blend of organic spices that prohibits bacterial growth on fresh fruits and vegetables. After graduating with a degree in Economics from Harvard, she launched the company, Fenugreen (named after Fenugreek, which is one of the plants in her patented combination).

Staying motivated through tough times

Shukla’s college had started a non-profit company through which she distributed FreshPaper, but it did not go so well. That was the time she almost gave up on her idea. She started to think that it didn’t have any real-world applications. After some of her well-wishers told her to give up on her idea of FreshPaper after high school, Shukla took their advice and got a research job, but she couldn’t get FreshPaper out of her mind. Doing research actually helped her see how even the best ideas in the lab or even in the kitchen, were of no use to anyone. So she started producing samples of Freshpaper on her own and handed them out to farmer's market and from there, her business took off.

Even the most basic idea can turn out to be the best. Imagine the herbs and spices which we all have in the kitchen. They can help prevent the spoilage of about 25% of the food items of the world. Even for Shukla, it was an unbelievable thing. She says, “It's a very simple kind of concept, and I think that’s what held me back for a long time because I kept thinking, you know, it's so simple. Even when my grandma first gave it to me, it just seemed too simple to really understand, but then I realized, that's really what made it so special. It is really simple, but it can be used by anyone in any part of the world."

Starting small

Shukla’s main motivation for preparing FreshPaper was to help people in the developing world, like those in her grandmother’s small village. While she talked to the farmers, she realized that there was a local need. She says, "for the first time, I realized that spoilage was a huge problem for people right in my own backyard. As I learned more about it, I found out that over 50 million Americans are food insecure”.

Food spoilage Issue in America

Shukla didn’t realize that food spoilage was a huge issue in America too. She was amazed by the response. Those who used FreshPaper told, “FreshPaper makes it possible for me to eat healthier and for me to afford fresh healthy fruits and vegetables”. Now, they donate FreshPaper to local food banks. Her major step is to engage with farmers both in the US and in the developing world. If she could get FreshPaper in their hands, Shukla believes she could stop a great deal of food spoilage at the source and create more access to healthy food around the world.

Her advice for Budding Entrepreneurs

She says, “a good idea doesn’t have to be trendy”. She is of the opinion that it is not necessary for the next big thing to be a fancy mobile technology or an app. You never know how your idea will connect with people until you test it out.