#business
An Unlikely Success Story.
IITs are the dream of every bright student in India. They aspire to go to the USA after graduation, do post graduate studies and gain employment in multinational companies offering huge salaries.
After graduation, Kishore too applied and went to the United States in August 2000.
Besides the regular college courses, he kept taking up extra credits, and after he completed his course, he was offered a job with the multinational, Intel in Arizona, where he spent close to six years.
“I got to travel outside the US to South Korea, Canada and Japan, where I learnt the importance of quality control,”
In 2012, he decided to move back to Hyderabad and become an agriculturist. “While my father is a mechanical engineer by profession, he did enjoy working in the field as well”.
Kishore started with contract farming in Karnataka but quickly changed paths. It was on learning about dairy farming from the farmers in the outskirts of Hyderabad that he leased some land there and started over with another blank slate. “The farmers in the area all had about 5 to 7 cows and I felt that there was a potential in dairy farming”.
In 2012, with a total of 20 cows and an investment of Rs 1 crore, Kishore took a leap of faith and started Sid’s Farm ( named after his son, Siddharth) a dairy focused on providing farm-fresh milk to consumers at their doorstep. He had to learn on the job, and one of the main jobs for a dairy farmer is buying the right cattle. This can either make or break the farm.
By 2014, Kishore was nearly broke as all his savings had been utilised to set up the farm. Sid’s Farm had close to 60 cows, with each one costing about Rs 60,000.
Soon, from 10 customers, their operations grew to selling 300 litres of milk over one year. Today, Sid’s Farm has over 70 cows and tie-ups with 1,500 dairy farmers that produce close to 20,000 litres of milk every day, catering to over 10,000 customers, resulting in an annual turnover of Rs 44 crores.
Today, Sid’s Farm employs 50 people in the city and another 40 people in rural areas. In addition, the brand hires about 150 part-time delivery partners.
