Mr Kirankumar Mohanlal Panchal , entrepreneur from Ahmedabad, bought the non exclusive manufacturing and marketing rights @ Rs.21000/- + 3% royalty for Bachubhai Thesia’s innovation, the Sugarcane Juice Extractor. Bachubhai from Jamnagar, Gujarat, also agreed and in his presence, NIF executed the agreement today on 30th October 2012.

Bachu Bhai, an inventor as well as innovator has many innovations – agricultural and electronics product – in his kitty. His reputation as a serial innovator has spread far and wide and it holds true for fact that hard work always pays off. Inventing, for him, is the necessity to keep him going and has become a way of life. We can call him a second-generation innovator, who heard the need of the market and started experimentation. His efforts have successfully treaded the path for a new machine, the Sugarcane Juice Extractor.

Sugar cane juice is an energetic & sweet drink, consumed during summers in all parts of our country. People go to different road side vendors to drink the juice. But, there is a continuous threat of diseases like cholera & jaundice primarily caused by unhygienic conditions. There is no machine available in the market which can be used for extracting sugar cane juice at home. Keeping this in mind, Bachubhai Thesia has designed a manually operated “Sugar cane juice extractor” which serves the purpose of extracting pure & hygienic sugar cane juice right in your home.

The product development exercised has been embarked upon by GIAN to augment the product features.  After continuous three years of research and development exercise, two variants of this product have been developed, a manually operated and a motorised version. This product has been showcased in the last Traditional Food Festival SATTVIK organized by SRISTI and NIF. It was very encouraging to get around 20-25 enquiries regarding this product out of which four inquires have been converted into order. GIAN got the extractors manufactured locally and delivered to the customers on discounted price for their feedback purpose.  Feedbacks of users are very welcome and supportive for further product commercialisation and a few lines have been quoted:

Dr. Alpesh Patel,Ahmedabad: “I suffered from Hepatitis after consuming Sugarcane juice two years back. Thereafter, I stopped drinking sugarcane juice and firmly decided to extract juice at home. After inquiring in market I was disappointed and started goggling and found NIF reference. I have purchased Sugarcane Juice Extractor and visiting and taking self demo at NIF. I was impressed by the sturdy built of the device. It is easy to operate by two persons. Because of food grade stainless steel rotor, it is easy to clean machine without fear of rusting and contamination. By doing 15-2 minutes of exercise we are able to extract 10-12 glasses of juice. With addition of Lemon and Ginger as per our taste, we are consuming fresh juice or frozen slush almost alternate day since one and half month.

Shri Naresh Kumar, Jodhpur, Rajasthan:  “An excellent innovation. The extractor is beautifully designed, light weight and cost effective. I operated the machine to extract the juice. The machine is easy to operate. The extractor is quite useful for the individuals who are interested in drinking sugarcane juice by not able to do so considering the unhygienic way of juice extraction by vendors.”

Simultaneously, there were some suggestions from Shri Naresh Kumar and other users as  illustrated below

•  The extractor needs to be tied to a strong base. The strong base may be provided so that the extractor does not move at the time of juice extraction.
• The rollers have to move in opposite direction simultaneously as such two persons are required. We may go for one handle with a gear system so that both the rollers move simultaneously and so that one person can operate the machine and one will extract juice by feeding sugarcane to extractor.
• We may have one small motor attached to the handle with gear system so that motor can operate both the rollers. Addition of motor will result in reasonable increase in cost and the same will be acceptable.
•  We may also go for two separate small motors for two handles to avoid gear complications.

Later the GIAN & NIF team came up with the motorised version of this product while incorporating the suggestions for a future course of action.

Commercialisation of the product

As mentioned above, four units of this product were sold in the last food-festival, even after specifying the limitations of the product. It enforced our belief that there is good scope for dissemination of this product after proper value-addition.

Recently NIF floated an advertisement in news papers across Gujarat inviting entrepreneurs, manufacturers and fabricators to explore the possibilities of large scale manufacturing and marketing. NIF’s Business Development team has received about 175 inquires, out of which about 20 different entrepreneurs of a diverse set of domains have shown interest. In the end, Kiran Panchal, a young entrepreneur from Ahmedabad picked up the technology of the Sugarcane Juice Extractor developed by Shri Bachubhai Thesia from Gujarat.

 Kirankumar Mohankumar Panchal – a new generation entrepreneur 

Kirankumar Mohankumar Panchal, is having his own family business of machinery parts. His father and his elder brother are taking care of their business and doing well. Kiran is a young and dynamic individual and is enthusiastic towards the scope of the product/technology. He has shared his ideology and interest –“Though my family is doing well in our business, I love to try and experiments things. Risk is an inherent part of any business and I am quite open to it. I am willing to do something of my own and I am quite sure that starting the new innovation based enterprise will definitely bring new learnings and set a wider perspective for my business acumen.”