Kishore Indukuri, who built Rs 44 cr dairy business Sid’s Farm after quitting Rs. 50 lac Intel job

Kishore Indukuri started a dairy business after quitting his job with Intel in the U.S. His company Sid’s Farm now clocks a turnover of Rs. 44 crore.

Kishore Indukuri, an IIT graduate with a Masters and a Doctorate from the University of Massachusetts, returned to India at the age of 32 and established a dairy farm with 20 cows on a rented land near the Hyderabad international airport in Shamshabad.

Today, his company has expanded into Sid's Farm, a dairy brand with a revenue of Rs 44 crore that sells approximately 20,000 gallons of

milk to consumers in and around Hyderabad.

Speaking of his early days as a dairy entrepreneur, Kishore, 42, recalls, "Initially, we sold the milk in the wholesale market for Rs 15 per litre and lost money because the production cost was almost double."

Kishore enjoyed what he did, and the company grew year after year. The farm, which began with only eight employees, now employs 110 people.

Interestingly, Kishore derived the brand name Sid's Farm from the name of his 11-year-old son, Sidharth. Aside from cow and buffalo milk, they also sell cow and buffalo ghee, curd, and paneer. The last decade has been most rewarding for the foreign educated and former Intel employee, who was earning around Rs 50 lakh per year when he decided to retire and return to his village. Kishore was born into a middle-class family in Hyderabad.

His father, Narasimha Raju, was an engineer at Mahindra & Mahindra for 25 years before retiring. Lakshmi, his mother, was a housewife, and his younger brother is now a software engineer. He attended Nalanda Vidyalaya High School through Class 10 and graduated from Little Flower Junior College in 1996 with a 96 percent grade point average.

Kishore says, "Being from a middle-class background, my parents believed that education was the only way to succeed in life."

Later, he earned his master's degree and doctorate in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.

"The annual fee at IIT was Rs 800 per year, and I received a full scholarship to Massachusetts. My father merely bought the plane ticket and gave me USD 500 to spend if I ever needed it," Kishore recalls from his childhood.

After receiving his PhD, he worked as a Senior Quality and Reliability Engineer for Intel Corporation in Chandler, Arizona.

He worked at Intel from August 2005 till 2011, when he decided to return to India. Kishore obtains milk from approximately 1500 farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

His property in Shahbad has approximately 100 livestock. He had been elevated to the position of Senior Processing Engineer, and his last salary was roughly Rs 4 lakh.

"I traveled across Japan, and other countries due to my profession," Kishore says.

"Life in the United States can become exceedingly comfortable. I had purchased a home in Chandler, near the Intel office, but something was lacking from my life... I was expecting a big kick (which I didn't get). When I decided to return to India, my supervisor inquired as to what I truly desired to do. However, my wife was overjoyed with my decision."

Kishore participated in a variety of activities back in Hyderabad. The dairy farm followed when he purchased a 24-acre plot of land near the airport in Shamshabad.

Kishore, who invested Rs 1 crore in the firm during a two-year period, says, "I started with 20 cattle, and by 2013, things were growing up. I stopped all other jobs and started focusing on my dairy," . I raised funds from my loved ones, as well as my own savings."

In the beginning, Kishore Indukuri managed the business as a sole proprietorship. However, he registered it as Sid's Farm Pvt Ltd. in 2016. Kishore bought a 4-acre farm in Shabad, around 45 kilometres from Hyderabad, in 2018.

The farm obtains milk from a network of 1500 farmers in order to provide consumers with a daily supply of 20,000 litres. Sid's Farm goods are submitted to rigorous quality control.

"We have small as well as large farmers." Farmers get paid anywhere from a few thousand dollars to a lakh dollars every ten days, depending on the quantity and quality of milk they give," he explains.

The farmers are located in Telangana in Shabad, Shadnagar, Keshampet, Mahabubnagar, Wanaparthy, and Kurnool, with Kurnool being the furthest away, some 200 kilometres from their land.

The milk is delivered to the farm in refrigerated trucks operated by transport partners. Their app connects over 12,000 customers, and they also sell through other e-commerce sites such as Big Basket Daily and Super Daily.

Sid's Farm milk has been offered in retail outlets since last year. Cow milk costs Rs 76 per litre, whereas buffalo milk costs Rs 90 per litre.

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