January heralds with it the harvest season in India. This is something we all learnt during our school days. But with Cosmix, we (Vibha and Soorya, the co-founders) have actually now gotten to become a part of this! In fact, harvest season holds such a special significance for us, that we look forward to it more than any other festival! After missing out on last year’s harvest, and spending a whole year staying indoors and distant from the farms and our farm partners whom we love so much, when January 2021 rolled in with the opportunity to hit the road for a harvest spree, we jumped at it!
And now, we’re about to walk you through the three days we spent on the road, lost in farms, basking under the warm Karnataka sun.
Day 1:
We arrived in Hubli and made our way to our Shatavari farms, located in a village called Haveri. Shatavari is one of our favourite adaptogens and a key ingredient in Cosmix What Women Want. It’s also known to have immense benefits for women’s health!
The process of harvesting and extracting Shatavari in a way that can be used in our powders is covered in three steps spanned over 2 months.
- First, uproot the plant.
- Second, boil and peel.
- Third, dry it at a high temperature and finally, bring it to powder form.
This herb is so powerful that even a little goes a LONG way. The process of drying takes 2 months – two long months for us!
Day 2:
On the second day, we made our way to lush marigold farms vibrant with that typical orange colour as far as the eyes can see! We are exploring the opportunities of where we can fit this beautiful ingredient into our future products.
We spent the day soaking in the beauty around us – the soul-searing colours, the mellow evening weather, hot chai sweetened by wholesome conversations with our farm partner Dinesh Bhaiyya. We instantly knew we’d be back for the mid-year harvest too!
Day 3:
On our third and final day of jaunting through farms, we moved from Hubli to Gadaa to visit 35 sprawling acres of another herb we love entirely too much: ASHWAGANDHA! We use it in All Day Energy, Bring Me Bliss and Sleep Like a Baby. And we’re sure to use it in our future products too. That’s just how good of an adaptogen this is! We’ll be harvesting all this bounty over the next 3 months.
Setting up a smooth and robust supply chain, one that benefits and empowers every person in it, has been not only crucial for us as a business but also our greatest challenge. However, we’re so glad to have found farm partners who are as much a part of #TeamCosmix as everyone else who works on it day in and day out!
Having direct relationships with our farmers helps us ensure that we maintain the high-quality standard of the herbs we source for both our retail business as well as our impact program, #CosmixNutritionForAll.
