‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.’ The idiom perfectly sums up the fact that the value of an object doesn’t actually lie within itself but depends on the person evaluating it. For a regular person, hemp might seem like a weed that can grow effortlessly and serves no purpose but for those who understand its medicinal and other properties, it is an opportunity. It was during a regular expedition to the rural countryside focused around solar electrification, that seven friends happened to notice the ubiquitous growth of Cannabis. At around the same time, one of them happened to visit West Australia, where he was exposed to the rapid rise of Hemp (Cannabis) as a base commodity all over the country. These two moments combined to create a larger Eureka moment, where they began to ask the right questions about why haven’t similar endeavours happened before in India and what could be done to kick-start the nascent domestic Hemp (Cannabis) industry from scratch. The result—Bombay Hemp Company Pvt. Ltd. (BOHECO) – India’s premier industrial hemp and medicinal cannabis company. It is an Agro-based enterprise re-imagining the future of Indian agriculture and sustainable living with hemp as its lens.
BOHECO’s Seven
BOHECO is a brainchild of seven co-founders each of who are extremely instrumental in driving multiple functions and business units under the parent organization.
Avnish Pandya, Co-Founder and Director of Research & Development | Business Head – Indocannabinoid (BOHECO’s medical cannabis division)
A self-taught science analyst who explores the universe of Hemp. Coming from an analytical background, he combines insights from the business and policy with those from scientific domains in his revelations about Hemp. He heads the medicine business at BOHECO.
Chirag Tekchandaney, Co-Founder and Director of Marketing & Human Resources | Business Head – B Label (BOHECO’s apparel & accessories division)
Chirag is responsible for key people-related functions. His experience in marketing at his previous organisation helped amplify BOHECO’s brand value. He is at the helm of the hemp garments & accessories business and leads the way for developing hemp-based textile products. He aspires to make a dent in several different markets where hemp is yet to penetrate.
Delzaad Deolaliwala, Co-Founder and Director of Accounting & Legal | Business Head – Athulya Krishi Foundation (BOHECO’s farmer empowerment division)
Having understood the intricacies of India’s legal framework, Delzaad works to develop a holistic set of regulations guiding the company’s efforts. He mobilizes resources to advance BOHECO’s research about the various legal aspects of Cannabis cultivation in India.
Jahan Peston Jamas, Co-Founder and Director of Strategy & Collaborations | Business Head – Nanobinoids (BOHECO’s innovation lab)
Jahan undertakes the company’s strategic engagements with domestic and international stakeholders. He engages with academicians, scientific experts, and hemp-entrepreneurs from around the world to build and strengthen the company’s network.
Sanvar Oberoi, Co-Founder and Director of Finance | Business Head – Hemp Fabric Lab (BOHECO’s fabric division)
Sanvar ensures financial sustainability by macro-planning business activities. Always on the lookout to alleviate farmer plight, he strives to leverage market forces for the greater good. He is the voice of the company at key forums and weaves professional networks central to its operations.
Sumit Shah, Co-Founder and Director of Operations & Supply Chain | Business Head – BOHECO Textiles (BOHECO’s fibres & yarns division)
Sumit ensures seamless logistics for the hemp raw material and products, from farmers and artisans to urban markets. He promotes efficient permaculture techniques for cultivation and post-harvest handling and oversees ground operations.
Yash P. Kotak, Co-Founder and Director of Business Development & Media | Business Head – BOHECO Life (BOHECO’s health & wellness division)
Yash oversees all internal and external communication with the aim to optimize offline and online media engagements. He strategizes BOHECO’s positioning in the hemp industry with an incisive business sense to create impact at the grassroots.
Exploring the Versatility of Hemp
Hemp is an extremely versatile crop with over 25000 proven uses from tree-free paper, bio-plastic, building material, etc.. BOHECO is developing a platform for anything and everything hemp where it can empower creators and innovators with hemp in a form most suitable for research. Its core brand proposition is food, clothing, shelter and medicine all from one crop – Hemp/Cannabis. Its current product portfolio includes:
1. Hemp fibres & yarns
2. Natural hemp clothing & accessories
3. Hemp & Hemp blended fabrics
4. Hemp health & nutrition
BOHECO in its endeavour isn’t just introducing hemp in a new light, but also harnessing a positive triple bottom line impact across rural communities. It is creating livelihood empowerment, training and skill-addition and economic independence related opportunities arising out of Industrial Hemp and Hemp based products for farmers and artisans across the hilly regions of North India. BOHECO majorly engages with the farmers and artisans of the Kedarnath Valley, who were affected by the flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in 2013. This partnership has a principal focus around social and economic rejuvenation horizons arising out of the creation of a unique cottage industry with respect to Handloom based Industrial Hemp products such as Shawls, upholstery, Stoles, Accessories, etc.
Seismic Shift Boosted by Technology
Industrial Hemp cultivation is one such global development gradually being adopted within the agriculture ecosystem. With the high nutritional benefits of Hemp and Hemp seed oil being publicly documented over several decades, Hemp could prove a plethora of positive benefits to communities across India in terms of food security.
With the advent of new age technologies in the relevant domains of plant food based meat substitutes as well as the growing rise for functional food groups, BOHECO anticipates that several strategic solutions such as vertical farming and IOT integrated agricultural systems would provide the perfect balance towards enhancing the efficiency in the production & distribution of food across the nation.
Opportunity – For Those who Seek
The founders point out that more than half of our country’s workforce is involved in agricultural activities. As the company is moving towards more sustainable and healthier ways, it’s very essential to understand the market requirement and all the more crucial to work alongside the government considering the fact that the entire population is essentially dependent upon agriculture for food. Reckoning the underlying opportunity, their advice to agri-entrepreneurs is to “plug in and solve issues for the long run which will ensure the sustainability of our nation and planet earth.”
Aiming High
BOHECO aims to be the premier and pioneering platform for Industrial and Medicinal Hemp in India. It wants to work with public and private stakeholders to establish a regulatory and scientifically efficacious ecosystem for Hemp cultivation and utilization across India, Asia, and globally. BOHECO aims to reaffirm India’s rightful place as a global force to be reckoned with in the Hemp and Cannabis domain, thereby realigning the geopolitical, socio-economic and environmental balance associated with this Wonder crop.
BOHECO: Elevating Hemp from Weed to Wonder
