For the consumer, logistics is invisible.
For food integrity, logistics is everything.
This simple truth is the most ignored reality in fresh value chain management.
While public discourse obsessively focuses on farmer prices, MSPs, and market reforms, the largest and least discussed value erosion happens somewhere else—quietly, repeatedly, and almost inevitably.
It happens during handling.
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5.1 The Elephant in the Room: Handling Is the Real Cost Driver
Most fresh produce items covered under this Doctrine—ginger, turmeric, green chilli, garlic, onion, tomato—are typically produced by small and marginal farmers.
At the farm gate:
• Prices often range between ₹12–₹24 per kg
• Volumes per farmer are small
• Commercial-scale mechanisation is rare due to labour intensity
What follows is a long, fragmented journey.
A typical fresh produce unit is:
• Loaded
• Unloaded
• Repacked
• Transported
• Unpacked
• Sorted
• Graded
• Cleaned
• Repacked again
Often three or more times before reaching a retailer or user.
Each handling event adds:
• Labour cost
• Damage risk
• Quality loss
• Time delay
On average, ₹5–₹7 per kg per handling is added.
By the time produce reaches the consumer:
• ₹20–₹30 per kg has been added
• Not because of value addition
• But because of repeated, inefficient handling
This is not inefficiency.
This is structural blindness.
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5.2 Why Fixing the Farmer Alone Will Never Fix the Consumer
Policy discussions largely assume:
• If farmer prices improve, the system improves
• If procurement is reformed, volatility reduces
This Doctrine challenges that assumption.
Even if:
• Farmers receive better prices
• Production improves
• Aggregation strengthens
If handling remains fragmented:
• Consumer prices will still rise
• Quality will still fluctuate
• Waste will continue
The consumer does not suffer only because farmers earn too little so he does not produce more.
The consumer suffers because produce is touched too many times by too many hands with no unified discipline.
Logistics—not farming—is the largest unaddressed lever.
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5.3 Logistics as Discipline, Not Transportation
In this Doctrine, logistics is not transport.
Logistics is:
• Decision sequencing
• Time discipline
• Temperature discipline
• Movement discipline
• Release discipline
Transport is only one visible expression of this deeper system.
Without logistics discipline:
• MTG loses meaning
• Processing decisions become chaotic
• Technology investments underperform
• Consumer anxiety resurfaces
With logistics discipline:
• Handling events are reduced
• Form is changed strategically
• Movement becomes purposeful, not reactive
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5.4 Time-Critical Routing: Moving with Intent
Fresh produce does not decay uniformly.
It decays with time, temperature, and friction.
Time-critical routing ensures:
• Produce moves when it should
• Holds when it must
• Converts when it makes sense
This routing intelligence decides:
• Which batch goes fresh
• Which batch is dried
• Which batch is pulped
• Which batch is delayed or diverted
Routing is therefore a consumer protection mechanism, not an operational detail.
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5.5 Temperature Discipline Across Forms
Fresh, dried, pulped, and semi-processed forms each demand different temperature logic.
Lumping them together creates:
• Quality loss
• Contamination risk
• Performance failure
This Doctrine insists on:
• Temperature-band discipline
• Form-specific movement protocols
• Seamless handoffs across technologies
Consumers never see this discipline.
They experience it as consistent food.
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5.6 Loss and Contamination Prevention: The Silent Value Creator
Most losses in fresh value chains are:
• Small
• Invisible
• Aggregated over time
Crushing, bruising, moisture ingress, microbial exposure—none make headlines, but all inflate consumer prices.
Logistics discipline reduces:
• Micro-losses at each touchpoint
• Cumulative spoilage
• Rejections downstream
Preventing loss is the cheapest value creation strategy available—yet the least glamorous.
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5.7 Release Discipline: The Antidote to Price Spikes
Price spikes are often blamed on:
• Weather
• Production shortfalls
• Demand surges
In reality, many spikes occur due to poor release timing.
Without coordinated logistics:
• Gluts and shortages alternate rapidly
• Markets overreact
• Consumers pay the price
Release discipline—enabled by MTG, processing optionality, and logistics control—ensures:
• Gradual flow
• Predictable supply
• Reduced volatility
Price stability is not enforced.
It emerges naturally.
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5.8 Why IVC Logistics Is Structurally Suited to Lead This
This entire intervention demands one thing above all else:
Logistics in the company’s DNA.
IVC Logistics is not chosen because it “also does transport”.
It is chosen because it thinks in flows, not transactions.
A particularly powerful opportunity lies in IVC’s existing strength:
• Vehicle carrier operations
• Predominantly one-side loaded movement
By intelligently integrating:
• Fresh produce
• Primary processed forms
• Temperature-controlled movement
The same fleet can:
• Reduce empty returns
• Improve asset utilisation
• Lower per-unit logistics cost
• Create national fresh corridors
This is not diversification.
It is logistics intelligence applied sideways.
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Closing Note for Section 5
Most food systems fail not because farmers are inefficient, or consumers are demanding, or technology is missing.
They fail because logistics is treated as an afterthought.
This Doctrine reverses that mistake.
By placing logistics at the center—quietly, invisibly, and disciplinarily—it protects:
• Consumer value
• Farmer stability
• Technology investments
• Entrepreneurial participation
The next section will now address implementation partners and ecosystem dynamics, showing how this logistics-led core can work with FPOs, processors, technologists, and entrepreneurs—without losing control or coherence.
