Trupti Bhusan Dhakate, a professor and a gold medalist in botany become a successful mushroom seller through her dedication, hard work, and innovative ideas.
Early Life of Trupti Bhusan Dhakate
Trupti Bhusan Dhakate is a successful biologist and business owner. She has extensive knowledge of microbes and mushrooms.
She is not just a highly accomplished professor but also a gold medalist in MSC in biotechnology and MSC botany from Nagpur University. She also qualified SET GATE exam in 2017. Additionally, Trupti is also a member of various boards and an icon of the Bharat Award by NDTV news channel, Agrovan Sakal, Indian Express newspaper, and more.
With her strong academic background and over 3.5 years of experience, she made significant contributions to her field.
Career and Marriage
She had a successful job as a professor at the J B College of Science, Wardha, Maharashtra. Later, she worked at Dr D Y Patil Biotechnology & Bioinformatics Institute.
Between 2014-2016, after that, she got married and moved to Sambhaji Nagar. There she joined AgriGen Biotech and gained experience in research and cultivation of various varieties of milky and oyster mushrooms.
In 2016, the couple settled in Pune after her husband’s transfer. There, she decided to pursue her passion for mushroom farming.
Taking the First Step
In 2018, her husband encouraged her to take action and she decided to learn more about mushroom farming and production.
As an experiment, Trupti produced 20 kgs of oyster mushrooms but found marketing to be a big challenge; low awareness and acceptability of mushrooms. To overcome this, she would engage with locals in the morning and evening in a vegetable market in Pune to sample her oyster mushroom curry.
Prof. Trupti decided to work to raise awareness about mushrooms. She visited vegetable markets in Baner, Kothrud, along with other areas. She also made oyster mushroom curry and soon people started liking it.
Then, she started selling oyster mushrooms: 200 gm at Rs 80.
Setting Up the Plant
In Dhayari, in suburban Pune, she took a 2,000 sq ft plot of land for rent in a commercial area. With an investment of Rs 3.5 lakh, Dhayari set up a plant. It was a concrete structure and she made 3 sections there: incubation room, sterilization area, and mushroom growing room.
Prof. Trupti brought mushroom spawns (important mushroom-growing seeds), started the cultivation process, and prepared 20 beds.
After 22 days, 10 kg of mushrooms were ready to harvest.
After next 8 days, 7 kg mushrooms got ready.
Then, after 15 days, the final crop also got ready.
Overall, 20 kg output was ready in just 45 days.
This time, she became an active social media user to promote her venture. This resulted in home delivery orders under Quality Mushroom Farm brand.
Soon, her mushrooms gained popularity and people approached her for commercial training and as a guest lecturer at colleges.
Business Boost During the Pandemic
During this time, Prof. Trupti started making other products under Quality Mushroom brand name; khakhras, breads, biscuits, papads, cookies, and more. These products were available on retail and bulk purchases along with home delivery options.
By the end of 2020, Prof. Trupti rented 10,000 square feet of land in Umbare village on the Pune-Satara Road and began vermicomposting by using the leftover mushroom beds, which helped her in creating a zero-waste business. She uses 4,0000 sq ft for growing mushrooms on 100 beds while 2,000 sq ft for preparing vermicompost. The remaining area was used for office and seminar halls.
Spreading the Knowledge
Prof. Trupti continues to get mushroom spawn from reliable sources like Agriculture Universities. She cultivates oyster mushrooms throughout the year as they don’t need air conditioning except in summers that is required in incubation room. A temperature range of 20° to 30° C and humidity between 55%-70% is required to successfully grow oyster mushrooms.
She cultivates milky mushrooms from February to August as they require higher temperatures. Today, Quality Mushrooms is a successful business and generates a monthly revenue of Rs 4 lakh. She continues to produce around 50 kg of mushrooms daily and also teaches students in this field.
Picture Credits: Quality Mushroom
