Idea Brief

Forest Pick is involved in production and marketing of Wild tea. Currently, they have about 10K digital footprints mainly from social media and 1K website traffic. Some of the achievements in their journey include customers in 6 countries & 3 continents, features in a documentary made by Tea Board and leading newspapers like Mint and Telegraph etc    

Start-up Idea

The mountain economy of Southern Manipur is rudimentary and poor. It hinges on slash and burn cultivation which has low productivity and also kills the mountain forest. At the beginning of 2017, the team came across some YouTube videos on tea making in certain provinces of China, where the villages thrive economically well with most household participating in crafting tea. Coincidentally, wild tea grows abundant in the mountains of Southern Manipur. That’s how the concept of “Forest Pick” came into being.

The team learnt the art of tea making and began to pilot with few batches in 2017. They sent the sample to people within their network and got a good response. Forest Pick started commercially started with a little over 100 KG in FY18-19 and grew by 3x in production & 4.5x in Sales in FY19-20. Currently, they have about 10K digital footprints mainly from social media and 1K website traffic. Some of the achievements in their journey include:

? Customers in 6 countries & 3 continents

? Shifted 4 families from slash & burn cultivation

? Featured in a documentary made by Tea Board

? A wild tea is part of Tea Genome Study on Indian tea cultivars under Central Government project

? Featured in leading national newspapers (Mint, Telegraph, Times) and international column    

Team:

Boilal Gangte: PGDM, IIMB & B.Com SRCC, DU

Role: Strategy, Marketing & Commercials

Aijulie: MA & BA from Delhi University

Role: Tea Master & Tea Processing

Jemshe Gangte: BA from Delhi University

Role: Tea Processing & Operations

Julie Hoihtinkim: Diploma in Interior Designing

Role: Operations, Sourcing, Partner Management and Logistics