Rahul and Chirag started a mushroom cultivation business and are looking for ways to increase consumer awareness of mushrooms. The document provides several suggestions: 1) Distribute free samples of mushrooms in stores to generate interest. 2) Conduct cooking demonstrations at grocery stores and fairs to show how mushrooms can be used. 3) Create a recipe booklet highlighting health benefits to educate consumers. 4) Advertise mushrooms using both indoor and outdoor methods like press meetings, social media, and flyers. 5) Ensure attractive packaging and branding to differentiate their mushrooms from competitors.

1. A. How will you advise Rahul and Chirag, as how to increase the consumer awareness
about this new food?
Mushroom belonging to the fungi species, is a nutritious vegetarian delicacy and a good source
of high-quality protein. Mushroom is consumed as delicacy and possesses several medicinal
properties. Mushroom contains many vitamins and minerals, like B- Complex and iron, and is
good source of quality proteins like lysine. Mushroom is completely fat (cholesterol) free and
also rich in anti–oxidants. It has a great market potential. Therefore, Rahul and Chirag made an
intelligent decision to venture into the cultivation of mushrooms.
In reference to the case provided, I would advise Rahul and Chirag to target household sectors,
hotels, industrial canteens and restaurants. This is because these targeted costumers are the best
potential markets. Rahul and Chirag had indicated that they face difficulty fund raising in order
to facilitate mass production. However, the orders placed by Star Hotel in Itahari daily will
guarantee their sale and profitability. Therefore, by telling this important information to
consumers and investors, there will surely be funds coming in as they already have a sure-
customer. When they have enough funds, they should consider further enhancing their brand and
consumer awareness.
There are many ways to increase the consumer awareness about mushrooms. One of the many
ways is by giving out samples. Free samples are given to consumers to increase their interest in
the product. It is a method of creating demand for the product. Although sampling is quite an
expensive way to introduce a product, it is also the most effective way. Rahul and Chirag can
give samples in the form of 150gm, 200gm and 250gm packs. The samples may be handed out in
stores and supermarkets or attached to another product.
Besides that, demonstrations can also attract the attention of consumers and subsequently
increase the consumer awareness about this new food. I will advise Rahul and Chirag to promote
their mushrooms by doing cooking demonstrations in grocery stores or food fairs. Consumers
will get to have a taste of the freshness of the mushrooms and this will definitely affect their
buying decision.
In addition, they can gather recipes that got to do with mushrooms and make them into a booklet
for consumers. This mushroom related recipe booklet could be distributed to individuals,

2. restaurants and the hotel industry. The consumers will be more aware of the many ways that
mushrooms can be cooked and this will undoubtedly increase the consumer awareness of
mushrooms. They should also put the health benefits of mushrooms so that the customers will be
aware and it is easy to encourage them to buy.
On top of that, advertising the mushrooms can also create consumer awareness. Although Rahul
and Chirag might face a shortage of funds as they just started the business, they can use some of
the profits earned from the order placed by Star Hotel in Itahari to advertise. Both indoor and
outdoor advertising can be done to increase the percentage of the advertising message conveyed
to the consumers. Indoor advertising will enable people to get the message at home while
outdoor advertising aims people who are the indoor audience. For indoor advertising, Rahul and
Chirag can hold a press meeting and promote their mushrooms to the editors, journalists and
bloggers so that they can review the mushrooms and write it out on their blog, magazine or
newspaper. Their readers will read about it and have the interest to try it out. Rahul and Chirag
can also create a short video about their mushrooms and post it up on Facebook or Youtube. This
method saves costs and reaches out to the consumers. For outdoor advertising, I would advise
Rahul and Chirag to advertise on advertising boards and distributing flyers because it is harder
for the people to avoid looking at these things. Therefore, it brings the best effect of advertising.
Furthermore, Rahul and Chirag should not take the packaging of their mushrooms for granted, as
packaging is an important marketing plan. They need to make sure that their packaging is
attractive to look at because generally consumers feel that a good package contains a good
quality product. Attractive packaging will also gain attention from the consumers and will more
likely increase sales of the mushrooms.
Another possible way of increasing consumer awareness is by creating a creative and attractive
brand name for the mushrooms. This is important because buyers identify Rahul and Chirag’s
mushrooms and differentiate it from those of the competitors by brand name. Branding is also
important as some consumers find that products with a good brand name have better quality
goods. It will also help to bring repeated sales. A good brand name will also get the immediate
attention of the buyers.

3. B. What would be your suggestions for distribution channel for mushrooms?
As mushrooms are a perishable type of food, I suggest Rahul and Chirag should invest to equip
themselves with cold storage facility. They could talk to the person in charge of M/s Gorkha
Argo Farming Mushrooms to rent them a part of the cold storage facility if they do not have
enough funds to rent one yet. This should not be a problem as they are not competitors since both
of them aim for different markets. Rahul and Chirag should also go for a faster and effective
distribution network. There are a few channels of distribution they could use. A channel of
distribution refers to the arrangement through which goods move from the producer to the final
consumer.
One of type of channel of distribution that Rahul and Chirag could use is manufacturer to
consumer. They could distribute it directly to hotels and industries with high demand of
mushrooms. The advantage of this type of distribution channel is it will increase the orders of the
mushrooms and eventually they will gain more profits. The mushrooms would also not be kept in
stock and this will increase the freshness of the mushrooms. However, Rahul and Chirag would
need to find more businesses from hotels and industries respectively for this way to succeed.
They would also need to sign a contract with hotels and industries to ensure continuous business.
Besides that, I suggest they should sell to wholesalers. Wholesalers, for instance, hypermarkets
can sell straight to consumers. This will prevent the spoilage of mushrooms and increase sales. In
hypermarkets, further sales promotion can be done. They can employ a sales person to promote
the mushrooms to consumers. Some wholesalers would supply to retailers to sell such as mini
markets, and markets. This way is not very suitable, as the mushrooms will be spoilt due to the
long length of channel of distribution. However, it can also be done as this will enable the
mushrooms to be available everywhere.
Rahul and Chirag could also sell straight to consumers. Having delivery service for any orders
above a certain amount can also be done. If it is just around the neighborhood, they can employ
people to ride on bicycles to distribute the orders. This will save cost and, in another way, it can
increase publicity. As you hardly see people cycling to deliver mushrooms, it will gain attention
and people around the neighborhood will be interested. For further places, Rahul and Chirag
could invest on a van so that it is easier and faster to deliver the goods.

4. While making the decision on what channel distributions to use, Rahul and Chirag need to take
Porter’s Five Forces into consideration. For instance, they would need to be concern about the
buyer’s power. Some hypermarkets will buy in bulk while retail shops will only buy in a small
number.
To sum it up, I would suggest Rahul and Chirag to use direct distribution as well as wholesaler to
consumer and wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Although there are risks involved, Rahul and
Chirag can analyze the profits made from different types of distribution and adjust the channels
of distributing to which it gives the most percentage of mushrooms sold. This will enable them to
maximize the profits.
C. Analysis the environment of vegetable market and find out the different opportunities
and challenges do small farmers are facings.
Farmers must have a keen vision of their customers, what they need and how to communicate
with them. The opportunities and challenges small farmers are facings are listed below:
• Customer insights: Producers can’t assume that a great product will have buyers lining up at
the door. Farmers must clearly identify their customers’ needs and the types and volumes of
products that they are likely to buy. The farmer needs to understand why customers are
interested in their raw materials and what they’ll be doing with the commodities.
• Product-market fit: By studying needs and behaviors of your prospective buyers, you can get
to market acceptance of your product faster. Remember that changing behaviors is difficult,
time-consuming and expensive. It is easier to change your product. The successful farmer
will offer a product that a chosen customer thinks is truly valuable.
• Distribution channels: Once a target customer is identified and the marketability of the
product is established, the producer needs to figure out how to get the product to the
customer. This is hard work, scrapping in the streets to build distribution systems and
convince buyers to buy. A producer must assess the distribution of customers and the
difficulties of delivery conditions and decide how marketing, advertising and promotion
might aid sales.
• Unit economics: Once the producer identifies the customers and how to reach them,
ensuring that the delivery systems are affordable is critical. The successful farmer is going to

5. be obsessive about the unit economics of the product. To succeed in agribusiness, the
producer must scale production and distribution and make a profit. Consider everything: cost
of goods, packaging, and wastage and product replacements.
• Logistics, transport and storage: Most farming is done in rural areas, far from the established
infrastructure of city centers. Farmers must establish supply sources and routes for all those
things they need to produce a crop. They must identify and account for the costs of transport
and develop backup plans for those occasions when weather and conditions might impede
delivery.
• Modern farming methods: Many high-productivity and sustainable agricultural practices
have been developed in the world, but most African production is still very traditional.
Farmers need to have information sources to better understand regional or global trends in
their specialties. They need to stay up-to-date with the latest training and production
techniques.
• Working with smallholders: It is common practice for small-scale producers to enter
contracts for product delivery to the companies who use and market raw agricultural
products. These arrangements are called “out grower” schemes or direct buying. These
agreements make smallholder farmers critical components for agribusinesses. Both partners
need to make efforts to build trust and loyalty in their relationships and to work effectively in
a network of producers.
• Quality strategy: A farmer must produce something of value to have a competitive advantage
in his market. People want to eat good, nutritious food that has been sustainably produced.
Agricultural products must be good quality, and the grower must know how to control that
quality. The grower must also be well-versed in understanding and meeting any certification
requirements. Meeting those standards is the best way for the grower to establish product
quality and credibility with buyers and other contractual partners.
D. What would you suggest to government and small business entrepreneurship to revive
the situation caused by the COVID 19 pandemic?
It has become challenging for most businesses to keep their financial wheels turning during the
lockdown period due to less revenue churn and the general uncertainty in the global financial
environment. Unfortunately, the impact on startups or small businesses can be way more brutal

6. as they have scarcer cash reserves and a smaller margin for managing sudden slumps. The ripple
effect of this shutdown will have a key impact on India’s economy, as all business sectors get
affected resulting in low revenue generation due to an eventual halt/slump on the sale of products
and/or services.
• Tracking expenses against the revenue status
During this contagion, it is of utmost importance for businesses to conduct a proper assessment
of their fixed and variable expenses as well as the actual revenues. This assessment will give a
clear picture of where a company stands financially and help the entrepreneurs in planning ahead
in the current disconcerted market. This strategy can be implemented even when the pandemic
effect settles.
• Plan policies for next 3 months/ 9 months/ 18 months
Since, it is difficult to gauge how long this epidemic will last, it is important to be prepared for
all scenarios. If we consider it as a 3-month problem, an instant halt on variable expenditures like
hiring, marketing, travel, etc. can help. However, if the crisis continues for 9 months to a year,
entrepreneurs will have to reconfigure their business strategy to reduce the variable expenses,
renegotiate fixed expenses (rent, salaries, equipment lease payments, etc.), and focus only on the
crucial essentials for survival. It may be a good idea to revisit sales strategy – selling online
versus in-person. Analyze if you need to cut back or scale up on marketing costs. Some serious
reconsiderations would be required if the effect of the pandemic continues for 18 months or
beyond. Businesses will need to strategize, communicate, and act with compassion. They would
require a revision of sales revenue goals and product timelines along with a new operating plan.
In that case, entrepreneurs and leaders will have to keep the communication transparent as much
as possible with their investors and employees.
• Communicate transparently with your customers
We are all in this together, so the ideal way is to stay transparent with your consumers about
what your business is going through. Customers can empathize with companies facing a crisis, as
long as the communication is transparent. Communicate with customers to understand their
perception of the product/solution offered by you.

7. • Maintaining healthy relationship with contracted parties
It is understandable that it might be difficult to pay out vendors/suppliers during the lockdown.
However, it would be helpful to give your vendors, suppliers, landlords’ etc. sufficient notice in
case there is going to be any delay in payments so that they can also be prepared and there is no
bitterness in this already difficult time
• Keep Your Team Engaged
Your team relies on you so keep them updated about every development. As a promoter, it is
your responsibility to keep your team members engaged and stay connected with them through
video conferencing tools like Zoom and Google Hangouts. It is very important to maintain high
spirits within the team and understand the general mood within your remote workforce.
E. Write down the emerging situation you have seen nowadays after pandemic in small
agro business development.
Like all crises, pandemics, and natural disasters, the Coronavirus pandemic will eventually die
down – give or take a few weeks or months from now. The new business models will evolve and
lot of innovations will help society in different ways. Consumer behavior will change and those
who will pick these trends will flourish in times to come. The morning after the crisis will open
up a stream of new opportunities and challenges for the businesses. Once the pandemic scare
ends and the restrictions lift, the nation will depend on its small business community to
spearhead the economic recovery. There will be businesses who will not survive – those with
flawed business models and depleted capital are at maximum risk. The agile and adaptable
entrepreneurs will be ready to address the consumer demand, restart their operations and start
growing their employee strength. Our country needs those businesses the most. The others will
wait for magic and will keep blaming virus, policies, government, competition etc. rather than
taking corrective actions – such businesses are ought to diminish.