Organic Bedding, Bath & Home

The problem can be bifurcated on the supply side as well the demand side:

Supply:

Currently less than 1% of the world's cotton is organic. Often mired with GMOs and expensive pesticide buying cycles, the Indian farmer has ended up claiming his own life the average age being in the late 30s. Chemicals like Urea have led to health hazards like Cancer. 

Apart from financial duress, the workers in textile factories have been subject to low wages and poor working conditions. Factories run down the waste-water into streams without treating. 

Demand:

There's been a move towards organic food, paraben-free products, Plant-based diets, Fitbits, Crossfit and Vitamin supplements among others. What about sleep? 

Sleep has been an ignored segment. One spends 1/3rd of their life in bed directly in contact with chemicals, right from the pesticides that go into growing cotton to azo, a heavy metal commonly found in textiles. 

The market is rampant with Memory foam mattresses and pillows, crafted from petroleum, emanating VOCs that are harmful for health and the environment. The mattresses being non-biodegradable, ultimately end up in landfills. It is estimated that the US alone throws away nearly 18 M mattresses a year, the UK about 7 M and India is estimated to sell 7-9 M mattresses every year with 10 year throw-away cycles, making the problem insurmountable.

The idea with organic cotton is to have a transparent supply chain - right from the farm to the fabric. The plant is sprayed with a mix of Wheat husk, Cow Dung & Neem oil instead of chemical fertilizers. This ensures that the yield is better and the health of the farmer does not deteriorate. Economically too, organic cotton yields a higher price, thereby increasing one's income. 

Amouve crafts bedding, bath & home goods from natural, organic, plant-based materials. The raw materials are sourced from farmer co-operatives and SMEs. Amouve has supported more than 800 farmers till date. The 2nd part of the supply chain - the factory, also uses azo-free dyes, is built on renewable energy and provides a fair wage to textile workers. 

Thirdly, while the market is rampant with Memory foam mattresses and pillows, Amouve crafts its mattress and pillow from the Kapok (Ceiba) tree. It is naturally hypoallergenic, fully biodegradable, gives great back support and simultaneously helps the local women in South India who were earning less than 3 usd a day to now 7 usd a day, by giving them economic liberty. The mattress is fully hand-crafted, thereby giving SMEs the right to earn a dignified wage. One needs to solve the mattress landfill crisis at the raw material stage. One's health and that of the planet need not be compromised. 

An average BT Cotton farmer spends nearly 4500 to 5500 INR per hectare for pesticide application.  (https://www.researchgate.net/p...). The inability to read leads to them not covering themselves when spraying pesticides. Which ultimately results in health hazards like Cancer.

Moving on in the supply chain, we target textile workers. The textile industry has been wrought with malpractices - from low wages, poor working conditions to child labour. Factories run their waste-water into rivers without treating. Interestingly the land around textile towns in South India has now been laden with so many pesticides that the consumption of rice grown there has led to growing infertility. The textile value chain has way more implications on millions than beyond its core.

The 3rd audience is the consumer. Imagine being wrapped in chemicals for 8 hours in bed. Same with the shower, where one is constantly wiping the biggest organ of the body, the skin, with cotton/polyester laden chemicals.

The market is redundant with home goods that are poly-packed and have no intent to reveal where they come from or what they are made of. 

Same for mattresses made from petrochemical laden memory foam. Known for its high content of formaldehyde, VOCs and phthalates, memory foam mattresses end up in landfills, offering no solution to degrade. 

The solution aims to target all of the above by:

1. Cotton farmers - Converting them into growing organic cotton. Amouve works with organic farmer co-operatives in Telangana and Odisha to ensure that they're given a premium of about 30% over the MSP (Minimum Selling Price) targeted by the government. Till date we have worked with more than 800 farmers. The adoption of organic also ensures they're free of serious diseases. 

2. Textile Workers: By choosing factories that are GOTS, Fair Trade certified as well as those that run on renewable energy, ensures that these workers are guaranteed a minimum living wage that supports the right of food, shelter and living. Also, the factories treat their waste-water thereby saving the soil around. 

3. Consumers: By providing organic cotton, flax linen bedding and plant-based mattresses, made of Kapok which is a great alternative to Duck-Down and Memory Foam, (also fully biodegradable), Amouve ensures consumers are only given what is beneficial to their health, the planet and the environment. 

Having come from an agri-trade family, I have witnessed the plight of the Indian farmer first-hand. As a child, I would visit the wholesale markets, also called APMCs (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) to see how agricultural commodities were sold, while my father would partake in the auction. I would witness him speaking to farmers who had come to sell their produce there. On one such instance, I remember a farmer called Laxman, who turned up with boils on his arms and hands. I couldn't fathom what it was and turned to my father to explain. He said this was the effect of Urea. I prodded more only to realise what Urea was and its widespread use in farming. 

Cut to University. Soon after, I happened to join a home goods company in the marketing department, that imported its memory foam mattresses from China. Whilst there, on several instances, I have come across customers who have complained of off-gassing (a typical smell that emanates from memory foam) and heat. I knew there had to be a solution to this. 

My own experience as someone who has seen the farmer from the ground-up to being on the consumer-facing side, makes me adept at handling this problem well. While one colleague comes from the social development sector that into financial inclusion and development, another comes from a family of textile trading. Overall, the idea remains to increase demand so as to buy more from them while also providing them the means and connects to connect to spinning mills and yarn weaving units. 

Amouve is a fully functional home goods company. We have built the entire range of bedding and bath (sheets, towels, mattresses, blankets, pillows et al). Amouve has served more than 20,000 customers till date. 

The raw materials that these have been built out of have been plant-based, thereby being cruelty-free, hypoallergenic and amicable to the environment. 

On the hospitality front, Amouve has catered to the likes of Taj Hotels (7 as of today), thereby again catering to the B2B2C segment. 

On the supply side, we have partnered with more than 800+ farmers, a team of 30 women (who help us in the ginning of our Kapok - the process of breaking the pods open every day, to splitting them open in order to extract the Kapok to the final seed separation process). Our textile units employ nearly 400 people and 65% of them are women. 

We further wish to take the product in geographies like the USA and Europe. 

Solve will prove to be a catalyst in providing a sound network of peers and experts alike in developing skills to better upskill the traditional cotton farmer by equipping him/her with better tools and techniques for a better crop yield.

Secondly, our current challenge is to be able to ship bulkier goods like plant-based Kapok mattresses to different geographies considering the volume occupied. With the right set of network provided by Solve, we shall be able to establish distribution centres in the USA, thereby shifting the production of these within the country and enabling employment. Monetary support apart from the above would enable this. 

Amouve also requests assistance in developing distribution with retail giants in a mature geography like the USA, with more demand driving the supply and further benefiting everyone in the supply chain. 

The market is redundant with polyester and cotton textiles. Organic cotton needs to be a norm, not an alternative. Amouve has been amongst the firsts in the country to establish this. 

Amouve has endeavoured to reshape the textile industry from the ground-up by revisiting the farm and uprooting age-old, harmful practices. 

As mentioned, the mattresses made are circular and biodegradable, unlike the alternatives of memory foam and manufactured latex available in the market. The goal is to be a pioneer in every product segment established within the home goods by uprooting traditional ways and creating an ecosystem that inspires and educates. 

The current framework of sourcing textiles is deeply flawed. The farmer sells it to a wholesaler, the wholesaler sells it to the spinning mill, the spinning mill which makes the yarn provides that yarn to a set of different companies who only weave fabrics. The process is fragmented with no clear demarcation on where the original raw materials are going. 

By revisiting this entire process and maintaining a transparency between the chain, the due benefactors of the raw materials (the farmers) are paid adequately. Initially, the price per kg was about 65 INR. This improved to nearly 80 INR.

Similarly, women getting paid Rs. 300 a day for opening Kapok pods are now getting paid Rs. 550 a day. 

141 sq ft of land's cotton is needed to make 1 king sheet set. Amouve has been instrumental in making 7000 + of these excluding towels and other bedding products. 

Amouve measures its impact with indicators like the number of farmers reached, the number of textile workers we liaise with, and the water footprint as well as the carbon footprint for logistics. 

Amouve plans to reach 3000 farmers directly by sourcing their organic cotton from farmer co-operatives in South India.

Our idea is to develop ecosystems that produce and consume responsibly apart from fostering good health and well-being and innovation. 

While sourcing the cotton is a direct impact, one that is important and not often measured is the fostering of education for the girl child that the farmer is able to do because of the economic prosperity gained after converting to  organic. 100s of farmers in the town of Adilabad in Telangana have been able to do so. 

We have till date saved more than 10 million gallons of water by growing organic as opposed to conventional cotton.

Consider this, Kapok is inherent to Indian culture, yet has no modern home goods company using it to its advantage. 

Kapok replicates the feel of down without allergies. As a natural fibre, kapok has a large lumen and cell wall, mainly composed of cellulose, lignin, polysaccharide and a small amount of wax coating. What this translates to in character is that it makes the mattress firm and resilient, proving to be a great solution for back pain. The small amount of natural wax ensures that the fibre repels water. 

Amouve's Kapok mattress is fully hand-crafted, right from the farm where the Kapok is grown (the pods are opened with hands) to the final needling and stitching. The Kapok Process - Amouve

7 people - 3 part-time, 4 full-time. 

5 years

65% women, 35% men (20% - Non-Indian (Vietnamese and Bangaldeshi)

Management: Women Majority

Amouve also provides apprenticeship to recently graduated young adults from 'Desire Society', an NGO that cares for the ones diagnosed with AIDS. Often finding it difficult to land jobs due to social stigma, Amouve enables to gain basic operational know-how and knowledge. 

Business Model:

1. D2C - Own website (www.amouve.com) and marketplaces - Amazon, Amala Earth, Tata Cliq, Pepperfry, Nykaa Fashion, Ferns n Petals, Shoppers Stop.
2. Modern Trade (Multi-Brand Outlets - Danube Home, Shoppers Stop)
3. Hospitality: Boutique eco-retreats and chains like Taj Hotels

The idea is to cater to B2C majorly and to hospitality chains. 

Sales:

2019 - 30000 usd

2020 - 28000 usd (Covid year)

2021 - 48,000 usd

2022 - 56,000 usd 

2023 - 130,000 usd