Tantebazar.com: Buy your fresh vegetables online

Mehdi Rahimbaccus is a young Mauritian entrepreneur, who, after completing his BSc in Agricultural Management at the University of Mauritius in 2000, pursued his studies abroad for a Masters Degree. Two years later, with a Double Diploma (an International MBA and “3eme cycle en Management Internationale” from the University of Northampton (UK) and Ecole Superieure Commerce et Management (Poitiers, France) he found that getting a job in the agricultural sector was a real challenge. 

It was then that Mehdi thought of becoming an entrepreneur and do something he had always been interested in: Hydroponics. He conducted some research on the subject. Hydroponics is the growing of plants in a medium other than soil (e.g coco peat) under a protected system like a greenhouse. He probed deeper and went to visit a greenhouse at Albion. With the support of his parents and a friend, he took a bank loan of Rs 1.2 million and set up two locally mounted greenhouses of 1,000 m2 at Triolet. This is how his enterprise “Les Serres du Nord” was born. Mehdi Rahimbaccus also launched a website, www.tantebazar.com to sell his products online. 

Why he chose this field

The aim of www.tantebazar.com is to be customer oriented and gives buyers the opportunity to buy fruits, vegetables and flowers at their convenience. The site offers quality products and home delivery is possible. In addition, the portal provides other useful information on health and nutrition as well recipes and gardening tips. Like any other online store, the customer needs to select the product he/she wishes to buy and the quantity before confirming the order and checking out. When an order is received, Mehdi gets an immediate notification and the product is delivered at the earliest convenience, most often by himself in his van. 

Problems faced

The advantage of growing under hydroponics compared to the “traditional way” is that less space is taken by the plant (as the plant grows vertically and may reach a height of 20 metres as in the case of tomato) and the yield is higher. Also, while growing crops under hydroponics, no pesticide is used, which reduces the cost of production and a product of higher quality is obtained. “Starting the business has not been that easy,” says Mehdi. Though he had studied agriculture and had gathered information on the subject, all this knowledge was not enough. He needed practice to have the required skills of a hydroponic grower and it took him five years to really understand the business.

In 2007, Mehdi became an established hydroponics grower and he was cultivating mainly crops like tomato, cucumber and sweet pepper. He sold them to local markets, supermarkets and customers who came to buy directly at his place. 

The main problem that he initially faced was with the marketing of his products. Price fluctuation was a challenge and it was difficult to get “permanent” clients. The price of tomatoes for example may vary from Rs 40/kg to Rs 200/kg, depending on the season and also the management of the greenhouse. In Mauritius, usually there is the problem of all planters growing the same crop at the same time, and when there is a surplus, the price falls drastically. Therefore, there were times when he was hardly making a profit from the business. Because the cost of production for hydroponics is high, he needed to find a solution for this.

When the website was launched, the main challenge was to make it visible to the population. Through mass media (TV, radio, newspapers and banners) and advertisement on social networks (Facebook), the news soon spread all over the country that it was now possible to buy vegetables, flowers, fruits and spices online. Before this, no one in the sector was doing online marketing of products and the Mauritian perception was that this initiative will not work. It took some time, but gradually Mehdi started getting at least 25 orders a day.

As a farmer, Mehdi does not produce all the commodities that are available on the website. Mehdi also helps other hydroponics farmers in marketing their products. He has a network of about 50 hydroponic growers and traditional growers as well in Mauritius. Furthermore, in order to run this business successfully, not only is the website important, but also his mobile phone is an indispensable tool.