In the land of coconuts, this start-up is showing how waste can be transformed into opportunity, growth and wealth.

Agri start-up ‘Pocket Grower’ recently stood first in a contest organised at the Kerala Agricultural University’s College of Agriculture, Vellayani, for giving a second, eco-friendly life to something that you see in discarded heaps on roadsides behind stalls selling tender coconut water—the thick, fibrous husk.

An initiative by Shanu Manoharan and Jisha S.J., his wife and business partner, Pocket Grower, based in Karigannoor, Kollam, recycles discarded tender coconut waste into a soil-free potting mixture—a nutrient-rich growing medium for vegetables, fruits and ornamental plants.

The venture evolved in response to the problem of tender coconut waste and its improper disposal and the need for good quality potting mixture. Today, the couple’s initiative is incubated at K-AgTech LaunchPad, a Rural Business Incubation Centre at the College of Agriculture, which is supported by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

Easy to handle

So what makes tender coconut waste special? Mr. Shanu says this medium offers the aeration, drainage and moisture retention needed for plant growth. It is light-weight and easy to handle. Moreover, the raw material is quite easy to come by. Pocket Grower sources the waste mainly from Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts.

“We enrich and customise the mixture for specific crop-types—say, for example, vegetables and fruit plants—and different growing conditions. We want to scale up our production. We are processing about 10 tonnes a month, but the potential is a lot more than that. There is also very high demand,” he says.

Under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U 2.0), the Union government has noted that coconut husk forms 3-5% of urban wet waste; “small on paper, but massive when stacked against the 1.6 lakh tonnes of municipal waste generated daily, rising to 6% to 8% in coastal cities.”

The concept stood first in the Srishti ideathon recently organised at the College of Agriculture here. Allan Thomas, director of K-AgTech LaunchPad, said enterprises such as Pocket Grower demonstrate how rural incubation can combine a local environmental problem with an entrepreneurial idea and a marketable solution.

Aparna Radhakrishnan, CEO, K-AgTech LaunchPad, said the incubation centre will support the start-up in refining and strengthening its business model and market linkage, and preparing it for scale-up.

Published - August 15, 2026 07:09 pm IST