Founder (Strategy & Growth) @ HoneyVeda | Building D2C Brand | Food & Agribusiness | Social Entrepreneur for Impact & Sustainability | In Love of Bees | Ex - TCS

Beekeeping and honey consumption is part of Indian tradition. And honey is an integral part of Ayurveda remedies for its medicinal properties. However, the current market is full of processed honey. According to the CSE-India report of Dec-2020, 77% of the samples from almost all the major brands have failed the adulteration test.

Also, continuous decline in bees is hugely impacting the agriculture yield. Majority of plants rely on pollination by animals and up to $577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss. And 73% of the pollination benefit is contributed by bees alone. Excessive use of pesticide and lack of process innovation, people inadvertently killing bees on a big scale.

So we created HoneyVeda’s zero-chemical beekeeping process that helps farmers increase their yield sustainably. Our bee-cosystem helps many farmers earn additional income by adapting beekeeping and indirectly bringing more bees into the system. HoneyVeda is creating an end-to-end value system by involving farmers, tribals and communities.

I am Hardik, and I am the Chief Beekeeper at HoneyVeda. It took me 5 years to learn, understand and master the art of beekeeping. And right now I am a Master Beekeeping Trainer recognized by the Govt of India. I am a commerce graduate. And I have done a Masters in business in 2010. I have 9 years of working experience before I started working full time for HoneyVeda. In my professional career, I am fortunate that I started from a very very small designation as an account assistant and could manage to climb as an F&A lead for one of the group companies when I left the manufacturing industry in 2013. And the exposure of working with TCS from 2013 through 2019 has developed a different set of skill sets for the service industry.

Saving bees is associated with balancing the ecosystem, helping farmers-tribal communities in livelihood opportunity, and avoiding food-shortage. And for excessive pesticide use and lack of process innovation, people are inadvertently killing bees on a bigger scale. 

At HoneyVeda, we are ultimately trying to save bees profitably.