Cultivating Trust: DeHaat – Honest Farms is India’s Best Design Project 2023

DeHaat, one of India’s fastest-growing agritech start-ups, is on a mission to revolutionise Indian farming by providing end-to-end solutions and assistance to the farming community. With direct access to farmers across India and the quality produce they grow, DeHaat intended to launch a range of offerings that bring growers closer to consumers, and build strong consumer- facing brands in the process. Oddinary partnered with the client to build these brands from the ground up.

Transforming Indian Agriculture

The rise in food safety awareness has led to increasingly discerning consumers, and established market leaders enjoy high consumer trust, making it difficult for new entrants to gain a foothold. To address this challenge, Oddinary engaged in multiple conversations with various stakeholders, partner farmers, and consumers to develop a clear brand architecture suited for DeHaat’s ambitious innovation pipeline.

Solutions Centred on Honesty and Transparency

Building trust through honesty became the central theme of the brand design. The identity of Honest Farms, one of DeHaat’s brands, employs simple typography accented by textures inspired by soil, symbolising the food movement initiated by DeHaat with the farmers. Real farmers from all over India have been featured prominently, emphasising authenticity and connection.

A Testament to Honesty

The packaging design used watercolours to depict idyllic farm scenes, with pack information appearing on separate tags to ensure the farmer’s world remained pristine and untouched. Transparency was further enhanced with a product window and a QR code, providing details about where and how the food was grown. The choice of substrate and modularity in design also enabled cost efficiency in packaging, as the same substrate could be used to print multiple product packages.

The power of honesty is evident in the happy faces of farmers displayed on the packaging, which helps create an instant connection with consumers and offers impressive shelf appeal. The brand’s success is reflected in its recent achievement of Rs 10 million in monthly primary sales, with availability in over 1,000 active outlets.

Credit: Oddinary