Berrydale Foods began not with green fields, but with the sound of a crowbar hitting solid rock at the foothills of the Malangad hills.

When we first stood on our land at the foothills of the Malangad hills, near the rugged Konkan range, it felt less like a farm and more like a battlefield. The ground was scorched, defiant, and dry. Massive boulders sat like ancient guardians on the surface, and underneath, the earth was a labyrinth of stone. Most farmers would have brought in heavy tractors to tear the land open, but we looked at the hills and made a silent pact: we would not wound this land to feed ourselves.

We chose the path of Ahinsa—non-violence—toward the soil. We decided then and there that no tractor would ever cross these fields. A tractor’s weight crushes the delicate world of microbes, the “good souls” of the soil that make food taste like food. We accepted the rocks. We accepted the dryness. And with a bit of hope and a lot of sweat, we started planting Alphonso mango saplings brought from the red soil of Dapoli.

The Eight-Year Thirst and Soil Regeneration

For the first eight years, our faith was tested daily. In the Konkan, water is life, and we had none. My father-in-law, a man of incredible grit, was desperate. He tried to drill for a borewell once, twice, three times… four times. Each time, the machine came up dry. There was no underground water table to speak of. It felt like the land was refusing us.

But we didn’t give up. We looked at the way nature survives. We planted Samata grass (Elephant grass) across the farm. Its deep roots acted like a sponge, holding the moisture from the monsoon rains and preventing the topsoil from washing away. We dug a small artificial pond and relied on an old well to keep our saplings alive.

Then, after eight years of patience, we tried one more time. When the water finally surged from the earth, the atmosphere changed instantly. It wasn’t just “irrigation”; it was a blessing. Our laborers, who had worked through the dust for years, celebrated by taking baths right there in the open fields and cooking their meals with that first sweet taste of groundwater. The desert was finally becoming a garden.

A Promise to Anusha: Chemical-Free Farming

People often ask me why I quit my career to become a farmer. The answer isn’t found in a textbook; it’s found in the eyes of my seven-year-old daughter, Anusha.

The “last nail in the coffin” for my corporate life was a string of tragedies. We lost several friends to cancer, and the death of my close friend and hair stylist, Vinod Kharka, broke something inside me. I realized that the food we were buying in the city was filled with slow poisons—pesticides, growth hormones, and chemicals.

I looked at Anusha and made a promise: I will never feed you anything that I haven’t grown with my own hands.

Today, Anusha is the heart of the farm. If you visit us, you’ll see her running through the rows of Okra (Ladies Finger). She doesn’t wait for us to cook it. She plucks it straight from the plant and eats it raw. It’s so fresh it has a literal “snap”—a sound so loud you can hear it from feet away. I would never dare let her do that with market-bought okra, which is often coated in chemicals to keep it looking green. Here, our “pesticides” are simple: cow dung ash, lemon juice, and neem oil.

And then, there are the mangoes. Anusha loves them with a passion that only a child of the Konkan can have. When our Alphonso, Kesar, or Amrapalli mangoes ripen, she is the first to know. To see her face covered in golden mango juice, knowing that the fruit is pure, chemical-free, and nourished by the earth, makes every year of struggle worth it.

The Vedic Heartbeat: Gir Cows and Bilona Ghee

Our farm found its true soul when my friend Suryakant Kadam joined us. An engineer who was working in Singapore, he felt the same pull back to the roots. He gave up the city life to manage our dairy.

We brought in authentic Gir cows, the sacred breed that provides A2 milk. These cows are the center of our ecosystem. They graze on the Samata grass we planted years ago, and in return, they give us the ingredients for our Vedic fertilizers. With the guidance of Mr. Abhimanyu Mane from the Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board (MSAMB), we create Jeev Amrut, Bheej Amrut, and Panchagvya. We feed this “nectar” to our trees every alternate day.

We don’t “process” our dairy; we craft it. We use the ancient Bilona method for our ghee. We boil the milk, set it into curd, and then hand-churn it with wooden whisks to separate the butter before slowly clarifying it. We even use old carton boxes and pallets for our vermicompost pits to ensure no soil infections occur. It is slow, it is tedious, and it is beautiful.

From Posari to Bandra: The 12-Hour Freshness Run

We quickly realized that even the best produce can be ruined by bad logistics. When we tried using third-party delivery apps, our delicate custard apples and water apples would arrive bruised and battered.

So, we changed the game.

Every night, while the city sleeps, our farm in Posari village is buzzing. Our workers harvest the greens and fruits at their peak. By the early hours of the morning, our own delivery team is on the road. From our branch to your doorstep in Bandra, the journey takes less than 12 hours. By 8:00 AM, our customers are receiving fresh vegetable delivery and milk that were still attached to the earth the evening before.

The Berrydale Foods Harvest

Our dry land has become a lush “Food Forest.” We don’t believe in monoculture; we believe in diversity. Today, our farm is home to:

• The Mango Orchard: Alphonso (Hapus), Kesar, Pairi, and Amrapalli.

• The Tropical Canopy: Bananas (the small, sweet ones!), Jackfruit, Coconut, Jamoon, Water Apple, and Custard Apple.

• The Vedic Garden: The famous “Snap” Okra, Mysore Brinjal, Maize, Beetroot, and Carrots.

• The Greens: Palak, Laal Maat, Gongura, and fresh Coriander.

• The Dairy: Fresh A2 Gir Cow Milk, Bilona Ghee, and handmade Paneer.

We may get smaller yields than the industrial farms. Our mangoes might not all be the exact same size. But when you taste them, you go crazy for the flavor. You aren’t just buying food; you are supporting a philosophy that says health is more important than profit, and that nature, when treated with respect, gives back a hundredfold.

Welcome to Berrydale Foods. Welcome to the family.