IIM-A's CIIE incubatee sets up India's largest biomass cook-stove factory in Gujarat

With an aim to tap rural India through quality-of-life-enhancing home-appliances, Greenway has already sold over 250,000 cook stoves

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Greenway Grameen Infra, an incubatee company of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad's Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), has set up India's largest manufacturing unit for biomass cook stoves in Vadodara, Gujarat.

A product design and distribution start-up, Greenway was set up by graduates from IIM-A and FMS Delhi, Ankit Mathur and Neha Juneja as a result of their travels to rural areas for undertaking energy projects.

With an aim to tap rural India through quality-of-life-enhancing home-appliances, Greenway, which received its seed funding from IIM-A's incubation centre CIIE, has already sold over 250,000 cook stoves. With a capacity to manufacture 800,000 units per annum, the start-up's new facility aims to replace usage of traditional mud stoves (chulhas) that are known for grave negative health and environmental impacts and achieve greater scale.

"Our flagship product, the Greenway Smart Stove, is a high-efficiency cook stove that burns all biomass fuels (wood, cow-dung, etc.) while reducing smoke by 70 per cent, fuel use by 65 per cent and GHG emissions by 1.5 tons/year. The USP of these stoves is that they are durable, without moving parts, and are portable. Till recently we used to get these cook stoves manufactured by a local vendor. The Government's commitment to 'Make in India' and renewable sources of energy, was a key decision-making criterion for us to initiate our own plant for manufacturing these," said Juneja, co-founder, Greenway.

Explaining the rationale behind setting up the manufacturing facility in Vadodara, Gujarat, Mathur said, "While we are headquartered in Mumbai and most of our customers are in the southern states, we felt that Gujarat offered a very conducive environment for new businesses."

Certified by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India, Greenway's products have also bagged awards for their unique design and affordable product.

"With this new manufacturing capacity, we shall now be able to achieve economies of scale and produce more efficiently and hope to be able to pass on the benefits to the end customers through lower prices." Juneja added.

Meanwhile, talking more about investing in Greenway, Vipul Patel, Associate Vice President at CIIE says, "Not many start-ups are coming up with innovative appliances that cater to the rural market have their own manufacturing base. However, having one has its advantages. It reduces vendor dependency, helps to have better control on quality, and lowers costs effectively. As investors, we are happy to see such companies setting up their manufacturing units in India and contributing towards the Government's 'Make in India' initiative."