The Indian Institute of Management Nagpur (IIMN) Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development (InFED), has collaborated with the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), Mumbai to enable startups.
A Memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between IIM Nagpur's business incubator, Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development, (InFED) and Mumbai's Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP), which is an autonomous body under the aegis of Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
With the help of the MoU, InFED incubated startups will be enabled to gain exclusive access to IIP Mumbai's innovative packaging technologies.
Besides providing access to innovative packaging technologies, InFED and IIP Mumbai have planned to collaborate to offer one of its kind in India startup incubation in packaging. The endeavour of both the organisations' is to provide maximum benefits of their programs to the farmers of the region.
Currently, InFED concentrates on agribusiness incubation where four startups are presently working in agriculture input, processing of fruits and superfoods, and processing of fruits.
InFED and IIP Mumbai have planned to use a cluster-level approach to provide primary processing and packaging of agricultural produce at the farm level, which will eventually enable the entry of farmers in the food value chain at the retail stage.
Further, IIP, Mumbai has decided to establish a world-class state-of-the-art testing facility at its Mumbai campus in the upcoming future to enable the startups and businesses to gain access to a premier testing and validation facility.
Prof. Bhimaraya Metri, Chairman, InFED and Director, IIM Nagpur said that the institute has made it compulsory for the InFED to jointly collaborate with IIP Mumbai to provide maximum exposure to the incubated startup through IIP, Mumbai's sustainable packaging technologies.
Metri stated that different types of food and agriculture entrepreneurs must collaboratively work towards increasing the shelf life of perishable items and bring organic produce on the shelf for market consumption.
The food processing startups in the region will have a platform to bank upon for validated packaging technology because of IIP, said Dr. Shivaji Dhawad, COO, InFED.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Tanveer Alam, Director, IIP, Mumbai said that IIP Mumbai campus has planned to set up an incubation centre that will focus on providing assistance to startups in terms of newly developed packaging technologies, which are the need of the hour.
Further, the packaging will play an integral role in setting up the trust of consumers with reference to every domain in the post – COVID era. Therefore, IIP, Mumbai believes to create a huge impact on the agribusiness ecosystem in the country.
Alam concluded saying that IIP is working consistently to ensure farmer access to packaging technology knowing the plight of farmers dealing in perishable products.
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