Orange grading, waxing and packing house

A pack house takes oranges from the orchards, washes them, sorts them by size and colour on a grading line, and coats them with a thin food-grade wax so they stay fresh longer on the road. The fruit is then boxed and kept in a pre-cooling room and cold room until dispatch.

Nagpur's mandarin orange carries a GI (Geographical Indication) tag and is the district's official signature product, grown across Katol, Narkhed, Kalmeshwar and Saoner. Much of it is sold loose, so prices fall hard when harvests peak. NABARD's 2023-24 credit plan for Nagpur asks for more cold storage to cut post-harvest losses of fruit, and puts agriculture infrastructure at Rs.500.04 crore of credit potential.

You need land near the orchards, a grading and waxing line, a cold room with backup power, an FSSAI licence and a market trading licence. The hard part is keeping the plant busy. Oranges come in two harvest windows a year, so also pack sweet lime, mango and custard apple, also listed in the plan. The plan also flags weak rural power supply, and a cold room cannot ride out long cuts.

Start by packing for a fee for local traders and farmer producer organisations. Then sell your own graded GI boxes to fruit wholesalers in distant cities, supermarket chains and exporters.