What is the name of your organization?
Mandala Agrifresh Pvt. Ltd.
What is the name of your solution?
Nutrition Mandala
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Circular business models to preserve, upcycle, and redistribute nutrient-rich fruits in Nepal, creating resilient, nutrition-sensitive food systems.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Kathmandu 44600, Nepal
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Nepal
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Only 3–4% of Nepalis meet the WHO-recommended intake of fruits and vegetables, and two in five children aged 6–23 months consume none at all. In rural communities, diets are dominated by starchy and ultra-processed snacks, lacking essential nutrients. Meanwhile, the rising cost of fresh produce makes fruits inaccessible to low-income families, widening the nutrition gap. As a result, over 60% of school-aged children suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, impairing their growth, learning, and long-term health.
At the same time, 25–35% of fruits in Nepal face post-harvest loss before reaching consumers due to poor storage, handling, and cosmetic rejection of perfectly edible produce. This waste drains critical resources—land, water, and energy- and adds to emissions, worsening climate change. Globally, food waste generates up to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions.. In Nepal, where food consumption already has a high water footprint, averaging 357 liters per capita, this is a significant burden linked to dietary choices.
Smallholder farmers, especially women, are hit hardest, losing income and market access. Nepal’s current linear agri-food system - produce, sell, discard - reflects a deeper systemic failure, driving excessive food loss, waste, emissions, food insecurity, and inequitable nutrition while undermining local economies and climate resilience.
What is your solution?
Nutrition Mandala is a circular food economy business model that preserves, upcycles, and redistributes fruits and vegetables to reduce food loss, nourish communities, and strengthen climate resilience. It uses affordable, low-cost, climate-smart, post-harvest technologies and value-added fruit processing to turn food loss and waste into an opportunity to boost the local agro-economy and equitable nutrition to children and communities in Nepal.
Preserve: We extend the life of fruits through affordable, climate-smart innovations like passive modified atmosphere packaging, ethylene absorbers, fungal pads, and thermal pallet covers. These low-tech solutions reduce spoilage at the source, preserving over 100 tons of fruits annually and supporting 3,000+ farmers and traders with improved market access and income.
Upcycle: Rather than discarding surplus or “imperfect” produce, we transform them into nutritious, shelf-stable pulps and purees. These value-added products are naturally fortified, and are ideal for schools, households, and food services—reducing both nutrient loss and water use.
Redistribute: The upcycled fruit-based products are distributed to communities—particularly schoolchildren, delivering vital nutrition while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from waste. Additionally, the nutritious products are ready to eat, require no washing, and are ideal for food service providers to prepare healthy snacks, beverages, or meal supplements.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Nutrition Mandala directly and meaningfully serves smallholder farmers, food traders, food service providers, and school-aged children - groups most impacted by post-harvest losses, undernutrition, and climate vulnerability in Nepal.
Smallholder farmers and traders, particularly women in rural areas, lack access to affordable tools to preserve the quality and freshness of their produce. Without proper storage, up to 35% of fruits are lost before reaching markets, resulting in income and food loss. Farmers also struggle to sell “imperfect” fruits due to aesthetic standards. Our solution equips them with low-cost, climate-smart post-harvest solutions, helping them earn more, consume more, and reduce loss and waste.
School-age children and families often lack fruits or vegetables in their diets due to availability and access, depriving them of the essential nutrients needed to grow, learn, and thrive. We process surplus and “imperfect” fruits into affordable, nutritious, fruit-based, ready-to-eat products that are easy to integrate into school feeding programs, homes, and food outlets.
Food service providers face challenges in sourcing affordable, high-quality, locally processed food products. Our products offer a cost-effective, local, hygienic, and easy-to-integrate solution for use in restaurant menus, reducing prep time, water use, and food waste.
