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Neem procurement, collection, grading, logistics in India
Neem is wild tree grown in all sub tropical parts of India. Neem fruits is the commercial part of the tree which is used for further processing.
Neem flowers in April month of the year (spring time) and fruits mature in the month of June / July. The matured fruits fall from the tree to the ground. Tribal people and poor villagers collect the Neem fruits fallen on the ground and make small lots and sell it to village agents. The village agents consolidate the Neem fruits so collected and dry them so that moisture is evaporated. Such dried fruits are graded to remove debris, twigs, plant parts, soil, stones and other foreign materials and then put them in jute / HDPE bags. These bags are then shifted to market yards for onward trading.
With the onset of Soap industry in India, Neem oil being the cheapest vegetable oil, was used to make Soaps. Therefore, an organized logistics / supply chain got developed over the last 100 years in India. The fruits were sold to the “Oil Expelling Companies” – however small they were as that was the only industry having commercial use for the Neem oil in large quantities.
These small village based Oil Expelling Units, used to buy the Neem fruits and crush them under pressure in ghani (the animal power used crude machine which crushes fruits and expels oil). This oil expelled from ghani used to be filtered in cloths and clean oil was separated and sold
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