Nutreco business teaming up with Indian digital startup on dairy nutrition

Nearly three million smallholder farmers using Stellapps’ technology in 36,000 villages across India will now gain access to Trouw Nutrition’s premixes and feed additives to support animal health, productivity, and milk yield.

The partnership follows a 10-month pilot whereby 5,500 farmers in India used Trouw Nutrition products, and also received mentoring and training. It resulted in improved farm outputs, such as milk yield and profitability, said the Dutch company.

Stellapps is a farm-to-consumer dairy digitization service provider, aimed at improving productivity, quality and ensuring end-to-end traceability across the dairy supply chain. It was founded in 2011 by five technology industry veterans who believed that IoT could transform rural India.

October saw the startup complete the first close towards its pre-series C round, which was led by Nutreco, alongside other investors.

Trouw Nutrition CEO, Saskia Korink, said the Stellapps end-to-end digitized model is a game-changer for Indian dairy farmers, a great example of innovation within the sector. “By partnering with Stellapps we can expand our reach in India and offer solutions to help to increase milk quality and yield for dairy farmers.”​

Expanding market​

Trouw Nutrition and Stellapps are also set to collaborate on the development of an advisory system aimed at ensuring small-holding dairy farmers in India increase their productivity and profitability.  

Recent research ​​indicates that India’s dairy market is set to increase by 6% between 2021 and 2026. Right now it is the world’s largest dairy market; approximately 570 million liters of milk are produced daily. 

But, with two thirds of Indian dairy farmers being smallholders, the sector has a large sustainability footprint and there is significant room for improvement, according to Stellapps.

Farmers with smaller herd sizes often face barriers as well when seeking to grow their businesses sustainably, including challenges such as financial support, accessing high quality products and services, and expanding their customer base, stressed the technology provider.