What is the fate of daily-use essentials that don’t find buyers? How many packaged food products end up in landfills simply because they are near expiry?

These questions perplexed Milind Shah, a 30-year-old software engineer.

With his family having a distribution business in Kolkata, Milind had grown up watching numerous amounts of products being discarded when rejected by their partner retailers.

Milind felt restless. He wanted to create some sort of social impact through his work. Today, his venture ‘Gauraa’ is an attempt to bridge the existing misnomers in the chain, eventually aiming to reduce the wastage seen overall.

“Every retailer has stringent rules when it comes to the shelf life of the product,” Milind explains. “They are clear that non-food products have to have a shelf life of 50 percent at the time of procuring from the distributor. In the case of food products, the figure is 60 percent,” he shares.

So, what happens if this criterion isn’t fulfilled? “Well, these products are then rejected,” he says. He adds that as distributors, they return these products to the brands and are compensated for the same. “But still, this is a massive waste,” he points out.

Intent on coming up with a solution, Milind began persuading retailers to accept stock that has crossed the mentioned percentage but is still viable for use.

But they denied doing this, saying that they would receive customer complaints and that would tarnish the image of the brand.

This is where Gauraa steps in. The platform saves 2,500 units of various FMCG products from finding their way to the landfills of India, every month.

But why would consumers purchase defaulted products when they could easily buy products in perfect packaging online? “We offer a 50 percent discount,” says Milind.

“The primary challenge was making people aware that the product is fine, just with a lower shelf life or a dented can. The quality was in no way compromised,” he says.

“Gauraa addresses the pain point of all the FMCG companies,” he adds. “Customers are ordering products with lesser shelf life and getting ample discount on them, which was not possible from the retailer points.”