Kochi: Food Flavours, a Kochi-based startup promoted by a techie-turned-foodpreneur teamed up with a homemaker-turned-chef, has launched India's first box-packed wellness diet products including five variants of whole-wheat ready-to-cook chapatis with moringa leaves, ragi (finger millet), flaxseeds, palak (spinach) and thena (foxtail millet). Speaking on the launch, Renjith George, Managing Director, Food Flavours, said the company had test-marketed these Fresh Start brand of wellness chapatis in northern Kerala since the last one and half years. "Even those least-urbanized parts of Kerala gave us good response to these niche, premium products which made us soft launch them in Kochi a few months back. Now, with our newly opened 1600-sq ft unit in Chowara, near Aluva, we are going full-fledged with various other wellness food products in addition to our five types of wellness chapatis," he said.
"Wellness diet was catching up fast especially since covid but developing new wellness products was not that easy. We took up the challenge and my co-founder Chinju Philip, after regular improvising, developed these ready-to-cook chapatis with ingredients traditionally known and scientifically proven for good health and wellness. We also developed box-packets made of carton boards to pack them to ensure freshness, convenience for handling and storing," he said.
Originally a computer engineer, Renjith had run a software company primarily catering to schools and its operations was active in the whole of south India for the last 11 years. But the challenges of covid made him think differently and it was then he was introduced to Chinju, a youngster full of yummy and healthy ideas.
At present, the company's newly-opened unit in Chowara has a capacity to produce 15000 to 20000 chapatis a day for all the five variants combined, which they want to increase to 50,000 pieces soon. The products are available across Kochi through premium supermarkets, bakeries and organic shops and a couple of pharmacies as well which helps patients with lifestyle diseases buy and try our products. We have also taken the direct home-delivery route considering the unique characteristic of our products, Being wellness products, they enjoy a personal space in our customers minds and most of them are addicted to the goodness our products offer. Normally chapatis are bought one packet at a time but our products are bought at least two to five packets. People also love to recommend and gift our products to show that they care. Considering these, we have also launched a service to customize your chapati with your choice of ingredients and lesser preservatives if you want to consume them fast," he added.
Fresh Start ready-to-cook wellness chapatis are priced at Rs.100 for the packet of 10's with oil papers separating each chapati. In Kochi, the company wants to focus on direct home deliveries while in other places, it is appointing distributors and looking at deliveries through a courier company which has promised one-day delivery anywhere in the state. "Interestingly, in many cases, it's our regular customers who offer themselves to take up the distribution as there is a personal bonding with the product," Renjith said. The company has also plans to roll out frozen variants of products as well targeting exports.
"Millet-based noodles, with these same wellness ingredients, are also ready to be launched soon as successful trials were completed recently, which will be followed by tortilla wraps. Remaining authentic is a tough task. But we enjoy being on a pedestal," Mr. Renjith said. The company has also launched its ecommerce platform https://www.foodflavours.in/ recently. Alternatively, Fresh Start brand of healthy food products can also be ordered through WhatsApp at 81130 73731
