Billing for your organic and natural food shop in Uttar Pradesh
The gur by weight, the monthly basket and which farmer it came from.
Gur, ghee and the monthly basket: what a UP organic counter asks of a phone
Bills on your phone
A jar of ghee, jaggery cut from the block by weight and a packet of millet flour on one bill.
Your own online shop
A page of this week's lot of flour, oil, gur and pulses, each with the farmer group it came from, so a family sees what has come and whose it is before it walks over.
Online orders
The monthly baskets sent from your page, one per family, collected in one place ready to pack.
Orders to suppliers
Your orders to the farmer groups, each with the group's name and the day it was sent.
Daily reports
Kilos of gur, honey and flour by the day, so winter and summer can be read separately.
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Natural food for the miller, the potter and the mill worker's family
Families in every district care what is on their plate. A few of the districts and what they are known for:
- Jaunpur's economy depends mainly on agriculture because it has no heavy industry. About 85 industrial units, such as a flour mill, run at Satahariya.
- Nizamabad town in Azamgarh is famed for its black pottery with engraved silver motifs, a One District One Product craft with a GI tag.
- Ghaziabad is an important place for industry in Uttar Pradesh. In 2017-18 it had 1,987 registered industrial units employing 89,780 people.
- Sitapur is known for its traditional wool carpets, called dari, woven on traditional looms. It is the district's One District One Product.
From the farmer group's lot to the family's monthly basket
Natural-farming groups are many, so each jar carries its own group's name
The groups that have moved to natural farming near you are many, and their names are alike. A customer who liked one group's gur may ask for it by a name that sounds like three others. Keep a page for each group, so the name she says is the one you look up and not the one you guess.
A natural-food basket that changes a little each month
Put your goods on your own shop page, and let the family send its basket from there each month. The basket is never quite the same: one more kilo of flour this month, no honey the next. The order shows the lines as asked this month, so you pack what the family wants and not what you remember.
The winter gur week and the summer week, read side by side
The daily report keeps each day. After a winter, open the weeks when gur and sesame went and put them beside a summer week. You see how much the cold weeks carried and how little the hot weeks did, so the shelf plan is read from the two and not from a feeling.
A jar of gur, and the question of where it came from
A jar bought two months ago, asked for again
A family that bought a jar of your gur, ghee or flour comes back two months later and asks for the same jar again. The lot has gone from the shelf and a newer one stands there. With no note of which lot she took, you cannot find her the same jar, and she goes to another shop to look for it.
Goods by the quarter kilo, and seasons that move
Gur, honey, pulses and flour are sold loose by the quarter kilo or half a kilo, and ghee by the jar. Winter brings gur and sesame, summer brings other things, and the shelf you stock for one season looks wrong in the next. A family that asks for the winter's gur in June is told it is not the season, and goes elsewhere.
The monthly basket that has to be packed and remembered
Some families order the same basket every month and pay when they pick it up, or when the pay comes. A little changes each month: one more kilo of flour, no honey this time. The list is on a WhatsApp message and in your head, and by the third week of the month nobody is sure what went into last month's basket.
A farm network that took its produce online
What UP organic shop owners ask about farmer lots, baskets and seasonal goods
A customer wants to know which lot her ghee came from. Can I tell her?
Yes, if you write each ghee lot into your order list with the group that sent it and the day. Look at the list on your phone, find the lot, and read the group and the day to her.
Gur sells by the quarter kilo and honey by the jar. Can I bill both?
Yes. Gur is an item by weight and honey is an item by the jar, each with its own rate. A bill can hold both, and each comes off its own stock.
The family pays when the pay comes, not when the basket is packed. Where does the basket wait?
Make the bill when the basket is packed and leave it on the family's page. The family pays at pick-up or when the pay comes, and the page shows what is unpaid until then.
A farmer group sends me a lot late. How do I see what is left on the shelf meanwhile?
Count what is on the shelf by eye as well as on the phone, and tell the families who buy that lot that it is late. Ask the group for its day, so you can give the families a day.
The farmer group's pressing of gur is finished and the shelf has a gap. What do I do?
Open the gur and see how fast the last blocks go. Tell the families who buy it the day it ends, and keep their basket going with other goods. When the next pressing comes, note it on the group's page.
Natural farming and the Lucknow agri mall
In April 2025 the Uttar Pradesh government said it will spend over Rs 2,500 crore in two years to move 2.5 lakh farmers to natural farming across 282 blocks.
In December 2022 the UP chief minister announced a Lucknow agri mall where farmers sell directly, and testing labs at all divisional headquarters for natural and organic produce.