Farmley: Revolutionizing Healthy Snacking with a Direct-from-Farm Supply Chain
When Akash Sharma first ventured into entrepreneurship with a B2B delivery startup, he ended up losing everything—his savings, his PF money, and even had to rely on his parents for basic sustenance. But today, as the Co-founder of Farmley, he leads a dry fruits and nuts specialist brand that is disrupting a $12 billion market by solving the most fundamental problem in the industry: a fragmented and untrustworthy supply chain.
An alumnus of IIT Delhi, Sharma chose a path less traveled. While most of his peers were chasing high-paying software roles, he deliberately sought out the "messy" world of agri-processing. Drawing inspiration from his childhood in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, where he saw his ancestors manually extract mustard oil, Sharma has built a "farm-gate" model that bypasses middlemen, increases farmer incomes, and delivers unadulterated, healthy snacks to millions of Indian homes.
The $12 Billion Snacking Tipping Point
The dry fruits and nuts market in India has exploded from $7 billion to over $12 billion in just the last four years. When you add healthy value-added products like trail mixes and flavored nuts, the opportunity swells to $15 billion. Despite this scale, the market remained devoid of a national-level brand that consumers could blindly trust for quality—until Farmley.
The Hard Lessons of a "Hidden Success"
Sharma's first venture, Delivery King, aimed to provide last-mile delivery for e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. Despite scaling to multiple cities, the business couldn't turn profitable. "I personally invested around 20-25 lakhs... I lost that money. I had to withdraw whatever small money was there in the PF account," Sharma recalls.
But he doesn't call it a failure; he calls it a "hidden success" because of the resilience it built. For his next act, he was much better prepared—specifically in financial planning. Before starting Farmley with co-founder Abhishek Agarwal, Sharma calculated his "sustenance cost"—rent, meals, and essentials—for 24 months and saved exactly that amount.
"I was like, 'Okay, now I have this much money. Even if I don't earn a single penny for the next two to three years, I still don't have to depend on anybody else.' That ability to stand in there is what allows you to pivot and innovate," he explains.
"Business is about innovation. Best of the best companies fail, and the smallest become big. It's about the ability to stand in there, keep innovating, and keep changing as per the market conditions."
The Farmley Hypothesis: Solving for the Source
Most snack brands are just marketing machines—they buy from traders and put their label on it. Farmley took a different approach. They realized that in the dry fruits category, adulteration and quality consistency were the primary pain points. To solve this, they broke their journey into two distinct phases:
Phase 1: Solving the Supply Chain (2017-2020)
For the first four years, the team ignored brand building and focused entirely on procurement and processing. They realized that if they wanted consistent quality, they had to own the manufacturing.
The Farm-Gate Processing Network
- Bihar (Purnia): Direct procurement and processing of Fox Nuts (Makhana).
- Karnataka (Udupi): A dedicated unit for processing high-grade Cashews.
- Maharashtra (Sangli): Stationed at the source for processing green raisins.
- Madhya Pradesh (Indore): Central packaging, value-added products, and imported goods processing.
- Haryana (Gurgaon): Innovation hub for new healthy snack recipes.
Phase 2: Building the Consumer Brand (2021-Present)
Only after they were sure of their supply chain did they launch the consumer brand. They began telling their story: why their almonds aren't oil-treated, why their seeds are cleaner, and how they help farmers. This "backend-first" strategy is what separates Farmley from its competitors.
The Farmley Impact Scale
- Farmer Network: Working directly with 5,000+ farmers across India.
- Income Growth: Increasing farmer incomes by 5% to 30% depending on the product.
- Processing Hubs: 5 in-house manufacturing units at the farm-gate level.
- Market Reach: Transitioned from 100% B2B to a thriving D2C and consumer brand presence.
The Power of "Supplementary" Mentorship
Another critical lesson Sharma learned from his first venture was the importance of having a mentor. In the early days of Farmley, they reached out to Mr. Naran, founder of Power2SME, on LinkedIn. "I just wrote to him... we met him for the first time, and since then he guided us," Sharma says. They even gave mentor equity to a few select individuals because they wanted their interests to be aligned.
Sharma believes in "phase-specific" mentorship. When they were a B2B company, they had B2B specialists. When they pivoted to a consumer brand in 2021, they sought out experts who had built large FMCG brands. This flexibility to ask for help and admit where they were wrong has been a core driver of their success.
Founder's Guide: The Pillars of a Sustainable Startup
1. Financial Sustenance: Save at least 24 months of basic living costs before you jump. It removes the desperation that leads to bad business decisions.
2. Co-founder Chemistry: Find someone with "supplementary" skill sets. Akash and Abhishek's deep-rooted friendship and shared community values provided the bedrock for Farmley.
3. Relentless Innovation: 70% of Fortune 500 companies from 2000 no longer exist. If you don't pivot with the market, you perish.
4. Remember Your 'Why': On the days you are emotionally exhausted, coming back to your core vision is the only thing that will pull you through.
Navigating the "Predatory Hiring" Challenge
Growth isn't without its hurdles. During their B2B phase, a large competitor entered the sector and tried to "poach" Farmley's entire core team by offering 2x and 3x salaries. "A lot of attrition took place... we couldn't fight them with money," Sharma admits. However, the employees who stayed were those truly attached to the mission of building something meaningful. This crisis helped them identify their "true believers" and strengthened the company culture.
The Future: A Healthier Bharat
Today, Akash Sharma is a fitness enthusiast who cycles 17km daily to his office. This personal passion for wellness is baked into Farmley's DNA. The vision is simple yet profound: to ensure the world becomes healthier by munching on clean, unadulterated products.
"5-10 years down the line, we want to be remembered as the company which transformed this revolution... where eating healthy becomes imperative," Sharma reflects. By combining IIT-level rigor with a deep-rooted respect for Indian farming, Farmley is proving that the path to a billion-dollar brand can indeed be paved with nuts, seeds, and honesty.
About the Guest
Akash Sharma is the Co-founder of Farmley. An alumnus of IIT Delhi (Mechanical Engineering, 2010-2014), Akash worked with Housing.com and founded Delivery King before launching Farmley in 2017. Coming from a rural background in Rajasthan, he has combined his engineering expertise with a deep understanding of Indian agriculture to build one of the country's leading healthy snacking brands. He is a passionate fitness enthusiast, daily cyclist, and a strong advocate for supply-chain transparency in the food industry.
Farmley is a dry fruits and nuts specialist brand that operates on a farm-to-fork model. By owning the processing at the farm-gate level, Farmley ensures consistent quality and unadulterated products while providing higher incomes to thousands of farmers. The brand offers a wide range of products, including premium dry fruits, trail mixes, and healthy flavored snacks, available across major e-commerce platforms and retail outlets.