Promethean started as a B2B supplier of milk chilling equipment to dairies. Our proprietary “Thermal Storage Technology” enables us to store cold energy when energy (grid or solar) is available. This stored energy can be used to chill milk in the absence power supply and makes our solution ideal for bad grid conditions. Over the last 10 years we have supplied nearly 3000 milk chillers of various capacities to dairies across India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The impact we were creating for smallholder farmers was indirect as we were dependent on our B2B dairy customers to take our chilling equipment to the villages. We observed that to really impact farmer income in dairy in addition to access to markets we also need to give access to nutrition, health and financial inputs to them.

In 2020 we partnered with NGOs and women led Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to work directly with farmers in villages in Osmanabad and Latur (among the poorest) districts in Maharashtra state in India. This is our Milk Chilling Solutions business and the entire capex is borne by Promethean. We work with the farmers to collect milk, chill it and transport it our aggregations centres. Our B2B dairy customers buy the chilled milk from these aggregation customers. The entire price of milk paid by the dairy is transferred to the farmers and we charge the dairies a commission for the services provided. The dairies have the benefit of getting high quality raw milk at the same cost. For the farmers beyond formal markets we give our farmers access to 1. Credit including cattle loans and microloans 2. Dairy inputs including cattle feed and nutrition and 3) Extension and veterinary services. All these services are provided on a cashless basis through the ‘Lakshmi (prosperity) Centres’ we set up in every village.