At a time when the world is reeling under the threat of a virus-led pandemic; clean food and healthy eating habits have taken centre-stage in our life. GoaChronicle, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Savio Rodrigues in discussion with Shan Nair, Director, SK Intech Metchems Pvt Ltd – the man behind the Eco Clean idea – a 100 per cent organic food ingredient product that eliminates pesticides, chemicals and bacteria from the surface.
GoaChronicle: Tell us about your product or services?
Shan Nair: Eco Clean is an eco-friendly safe, vegetable, fruit, paneer, fish and meat cleaner. It is a 100% organic and a complete food ingredient product that eliminates pesticides, chemicals, bacteria, wax and preservatives from the surface.
Eco Clean can be used as a cleaner cum disinfectant, food additive and preservative
GC: What makes your product / services unique and what competition do you see in India and globally?
Shan Nair: Eco Clean can be used as a food additive, preservative and disinfectant and is unique because:
- Naturally sourced single ingredient without any chemical process
- 100% safe and organic
- Spent solution can be used to water the plants which improves the plant growth
- Reduce the consumption of water considerably for cleaning, thereby contributing water conservation.
- FDA approved raw material and FSSAI certified product
- Tested by Independent laboratory for various pesticides and bacterial removals
- Can be used to clean / sterilize meat, fish, rice, paneer, baby products, kitchen appliances
- Increases freshness and shelf-life of the produce
There are many vegetable and fruit cleaners / sanitizers available today in India and globally. ITC, Marico are the latest entrants in this space and many of our competitors have liquid based products as compared to Eco Clean that is powder based. There are also Chlorine and Ozone based products, which are not healthy and safe.
GC. What are the challenges you see in the market at this point of time?
Shan Nair: Vegetables, fruits contain harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances that can cause multiple life threatening diseases including cancer. In the pre-covid era, there was lack of awareness and not much care was taken towards cleaning food produce.
Challenges that we face today are:
- Awareness: Communication to make people aware about the problem and help them choose the right product
- Availability – Making it available in the stores and market all over India
- Safety: Every cleaner / sterilizer is not safe – People go by the brand / advertising
- Price: Quality Products are never cheap
GC: Tell us about your team and what inspires them?
Shan Nair: We are a small and committed team and looking to grow. The inspiration comes from the innovative products that we have. Numerous applications of our product keeps us inspiring to search for new segments. We are very nimble and flexible as an organization
GC. Where do you see your product / service reaching in the next five-years?
Shan Nair: We will grow into a company that could contribute to the mankind for living better and healthy lives. We would like to see Eco Clean be a part of every household, restaurants, large kitchens, agriculture fields, livestock farms etc.
GC: Do you have plans to raise funding to grow your business or allow your business to organically grow?
Shan Nair: We currently do not have any plans to raise funding however, we can explore the possibilities.
GC. What are the challenges you face as a startup?
Shan Nair: Some of the challenges that we face as a startup are:
- Capital Investment
- Neglecting marketing and sales
- Have a right team and scaling up
- Competition from large multinationals
- Winning trust of customers – since we are new it takes time to build trust
- People like to have things for free – request for free samples
