1) Mansukhbhai Prajapati is a social entrepreneur from India who invented the Mitticool refrigerator, made of clay and requiring no electricity. He grew up poor in a village in Gujarat and started his own pottery business. 2) Inspired by a newspaper headline calling broken clay pots the "fridge of the poor," Prajapati spent years innovating a clay refrigerator that uses evaporation for cooling. With support from organizations, he launched Mitticool in 2002. 3) Mitticool refrigerators are affordable, energy efficient alternatives to traditional fridges. Prajapati faced many challenges but gained recognition, with his products being sold worldwide and in major Indian retailers. He

1. THE STORY OF MITTI-
COOL REFRIGERATOR
G VENKATESH

2. Manshuk Lal Prajapati, Founder, Mitticool

3. Childhood days – toil & struggle…
▪ Born in a remote village called Nichimandal of Morbi, Rajkot,
Mansukhbhai was exposed to traditional clay making since
childhood. But, due to the precarious financial situation of the
family, he had to leave studies early and take up various odd
jobs to support the family.

4. ▪ Whenever his in-laws stepped on to the highway, Manshuk Lal
Prajapati would crouch behind his tea- stall to hide. Prajapati,
48, was a defeated man. He had failed in his tenth boards,
worked as a laborer and was now trying to eek out a living as a
tea vendor in Wankaner, a small dusty town in Gujarat.
▪ But a wave of humiliation swept over him whenever his in-laws
saw him peddling tea on the roadside. "My in-laws were much
better off. They were in the toy making business and here I was
selling tea. I felt very ashamed," he says.

5. Prajapati is a potter with a difference.
▪ Having seen his poor potter father getting grains in return for
pots and then working as a mason after his family was uprooted
from Morbi to Wankaner after the break of Machhu dam in
1979, Prajapati always wanted to start an enterprise of his own.
▪ “My father always dissuaded me from pursuing pottery, saying
there was no money in it and no one would let their daughter
marry me,” recalls Prajapati, who has made his parents proud
through the same pottery today.

6. ▪ Prajapati, a tenth-standard dropout, began working at a tea-stall
after his father discouraged him from entering the family’s
pottery business as the income was negligible.
▪ His initial struggle saw him working in a construction industry
and for some time in a brick kiln. As his heart was not in those
jobs, he joined a pottery unit and worked there for four years to
learn the nuances of the craft.
▪ Later, he became a supervisor at a roof-tile manufacturing
company and eventually, in 1989, returned to his passion for
pottery by producing tavdi or tawa (frying pan) from clay.

7. Nurturing career ambitions…
▪ In 1988, he left his job and took a loan of Rs. 30,000 to start his
own earthen plate manufacturing factory.
▪ Mansukh bhai modified the roof tile making hand press and
developed a hand press machine having a capacity to produce
700 earthen pans per day. He sold one pan for 0.65 paisa and
within 2 days he could sell the entire 1st batch.

8. Prajapati's factory churning out clay appliances

9. Passion to Innovate, Drive to Excel.
▪ Prajapati used the hand press to make the earthen pans (tawas)
used for making rotis in 1988. Till then the hand press was only
used to make roof tiles.
▪ Using this innovation, he was able to make 700 pieces of tawas
in a day as against a mere hundred that one could make with
conventional methods.

10. Dealing with negative feedback
▪ Prajapati started getting negative feedback from customers
regarding the durability of the tavas (pans). He then
experimentally varied the proportions of clay to get a mix which
was more heat resistant and durable.
▪ In 1990, he got his unit company registered. And in 1995 he got
a bulk export order for water filters from Nairobi, Kenya.
Finally, the Trade Mark ‘Mitticool’ was registered in 2001.

11. Non Stick Earthen Tava
▪ Mansukhbhai’s wife once asked him to bring a non-stick tava
from the market. At that time, in 2003, he found out that a non-
stick tava costed Rs. 200. Manusukh bhai did some more market
research and found out that apart from being costly, Teflon
coated non-stick tavas do not retain the natural taste of food .
Also, the coating tends to wear off quite soon.
▪ So, he reached Mumbai to learn the process of non-stick coating
on pans and to find an appropriate coating material for his
earthen tavas. After about a year of research and making one
lakh trial tavas, he finally succeeded in developing the non-stick
coating for earthen pans using Akzo Noble.

12. ▪ Mansukh bhai’s non-stick earthen tava uses less oil than a
normal pan and preserves the natural flavor of food.
▪ It is much cheaper than non-stick tavas and consumes less LPG
as well.
▪ As the coating gets absorbed by the pores of the earthen
material, it does not wear that easily.

13. ▪ The non-stick coating has been tested at the Institute of
Chemical Technology, University of Mumbai.
▪ For this product, Mansukhbhai was also supported under the
Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF) of NIF- India.

15. ▪ In the calamitous earthquake of 2001, Mansukh bhai suffered
huge irreparable loss. His stock was decimated to a large extent,
and whatever remained, he distributed it among the earthquake
victims in Kutch.
▪ In February 2001, Sandesh Gujarat Daily carried a photo
feature on the earthquake where at one place it showed a
broken water filter of Mansukhbhai with the caption
‘Garibi Ka Fridge Tut Gaya’ (Fridge of the Poor got broken)

16. ‘ Garibon na fridge no bhookon’
▪ Reporting on the devastation and thousands of lives lost during
the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, local newspapers had this
intriguing headline describing the havoc wreaked at a potters’
colony: ‘ Garibon na fridge no bhookon’ (Pieces of the poor
people’s fridge). Among the debris were the shards of hundreds
of broken clay pitchers.

17. ▪ That headline proved to be a game-changer for Wakaner-based potter
Mansukhbhai Prajapati, who literally picked up the pieces to begin afresh on a
remarkably innovative idea — the Mitticool refrigerator, which is made of mud
and works without electricity.

18. Use of Open Innovation
▪ This caption motivated him to work hard and create a fridge
that could be used by rural masses. In 2002, he started working
on the refrigerator design and came in contact with GIAN
(Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network), which assisted
him in various stages of product development.

20. HOW DOES MITTI-COOL WORK?
▪ The fridge works on a simple scientific principle.
▪ The principle of cooling used in this simple machine is the same
as that of earthen pots. It does not require electricity or any
artificial energy and therefore has no recurring costs. The
refrigerator preserves the original taste of fruits and vegetables.
▪ Evaporation causes cooling. The roof , walls and bottom of this
clay fridge are filled with water which evaporates over time
keeping the vegetables in this two-chambered fridge cool and
fresh.

22. ▪ A lot of rigorous experimentation went into his work on the
Mitticool refrigerator, which he launched in 2002.
▪ Besides a tank for cooling and storing 10 litres of water, the
earthenware refrigerator has two compartments for storing 5 kg
of vegetables, fruits and other food.
▪ It takes about seven days to make one Mitticool fridge. The
special terracotta clay used is baked at 1,200 degree Celsius to
harden it. Like any clay pot used to cool water, the fridge too
works by keeping the inside temperature 10 degrees lower than
the outside.

23. A cool deal
▪ Priced at Rs.2500, Mitti Cool has capacity to store about 5-7 kg of
fruits and vegetables
▪ Its first model was modified to make it more user-friendly
under the guidance of National Institute of Design,
Ahmedabad.
▪ “The temperature inside the fridge remains 20 degrees less than
the outside room temperature,” says Prajapati.

24. ▪ The fridge has a top chamber that holds about 10 litres of water,
which cools the fridge in a natural way.
▪ The lower two compartments have a capacity for storing 5-7 Kg
of fruits, vegetables and milk.
▪ Fruits and vegetables remain fresh for 6-7 days. Milk could be
stored for three days.

25. ▪ GIAN facilitated design improvements in the fridge through
National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.
▪ During testing, the shelf life of coriander was extended by 4
days as against 1.5-2 days in room temperature. Shelf life of
vegetables like brinjal, chilly & okra was increased on an
average by 5-6 days vis-à-vis room temperature.

26. Recognition
▪ Mitticool refrigerator has been featured at a conference
organized by the Centre for India and Global Business, Judge
Business School, University of Cambridge, UK in May 2009.
▪ Bosch and Siemens Hausgeräte (BSH), Germany, one of the
world’s largest home appliance companies, have also written to
GIAN and showed interest in the product.

27. ▪ But his path to success has been far from smooth. Burdened
under heavy loans, Prajapati stuck to his ideas against all odds.
▪ “From 2002 to 2004, I had a huge debt of Rs 19 lakh. Of this, Rs
11 lakh was a bank loan,” he recalls. “I sold my house in order
to repay my debt, as I was on the verge of bankruptcy. But by
the grace of God, my family supported me through the ordeal. I
was determined to prove that a clay fridge is possible.”

28. ▪ His tenacity was rewarded in the form of help from a professor
at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Anil Gupta,
Executive Vice-Chairman of the National Innovation
Foundation did not just give him financial support but also
recommended him to Rural Innovators of India, a Forbes guide
to rural entrepreneurs.

29. ▪ “For five years I worked like mad on the project, spending long
hours testing various types of clay, making different moulds for
fridge design and spending money like water,” says Prajapati.
▪ “My dream is to make a green (eco-friendly) house with clay
that should have no electricity but only renewable energy to
maintain a comfortable temperature inside,” he says.

30. ▪ “I want to make more such eco-friendly products that are affordable to
the poorest of the poor,” says this entrepreneur brimming with novel
ideas. His products have also received ISO certification.
▪ The products go all over India and sell especially well in Chennai. His
products have also gone to Africa and Prajapati dispatched his first
consignment of 100 clay fridges to Dubai.
▪ GIAN also helped him to set up a company, Clay Creations, in
2008 and assisted him in developing the online retail portal (
www.mitticool.in).

31. Mansukhbhai (right) with former president Dr.
APJ Abdul Kalam.

32. An innovator who is always open to new
ideas..
▪ Mansukh bhai is an innovator who is always open to new ideas
on innovative products and design.
▪ NIF-India shared with him an idea about developing an earthen
thermos flask. Manuskhbhai, paying heed to the consultation
given by NIF-India on design and development, promptly
manufactured thermos of 1 and 2 liters capacity.
▪ GIAN & NIF-India also assisted Manuskhbhai in collaborating
with the retail giant, Future Group. Now, his products are sold
at various branches of Big Bazaar.

33. ▪ Prajapati makes the fridge and other appliances out of ordinary
clay. His ancestors were potters and he witnessed with a tinge
of pain and nostalgia the declining importance of earthen ware
products and the rise of plastic.
▪ The rapid march of globalization has forced many artisans out
of their traditional jobs in India. Prajapati’s father was one them.
"My father left pottery to work as a laborer," says Prajapati.

34. Mansukhbhai is a man on a mission.
▪ If he is not experimenting in his factory, he is travelling across
the country to market his products. After inventing a fridge
made of clay, he is improvising to make small ‘Minute
Mitticools’ like 5 minute mitticool or 2 minute mitticool, which
would be able to cool water in 5 or 2 minutes.
▪ We look forward to hearing all about his brilliant innovations in
the future as well!

35. ▪ He has now ventured online and retails through eBay, Craftvilla
and Nethaat.com among others. He, however, clarifies that he is
in talks with retail houses such as Essar and Future Group to
sell his wares under a different format.

36. ▪ Today, his products are so successful that he now has a row of
factories with an assembly line production of myriad clay
products.
▪ Big machines designed by Prajapati himself
▪ These machines mold the clay in seconds into pots and pans -
each of them produced in their hundreds to keep up with the
rising demand.

37. ACCOLADES
▪ Besides featuring on Discovery channel and making it to Forbes’
list of seven most-powerful rural Indian entrepreneurs,
Prajapati also appeared on Indique — Untold Stories of
Contemporary India, an award-winning 2007 travel series on
CNBC, USA.
▪ Among so many achievements to his credit, Prajapati is
especially proud of educating his children to make it better in
life. His elder son, after completing his diploma in ceramic
engineering, now assists him at Mitticool and the pottery
business, while his younger son has completed his BSc and
supports him in the family business.