This healthy cookie brand empowers rural women while also helping to save the planet

Do you’re feeling responsible whereas indulging in snacks? What in the event you snacking means serving to to supply employment and sustenance to rural ladies in addition to doing all your bit for planet Earth? That’s the differentiating issue of Maharashtra-based cookie model Kivu – Kingdom of Good Meals. Based in 2019 by Dr Minal Kabra and Vaibhav Dugar, Kivu claims to be the world’s solely sun-baked vegan cookies foodtech startup. 

“Kivu has a holistic strategy in direction of well being. Weaving the patron, the producer, and the setting in a symbiotic relationship, we purpose to empower rural ladies to bake our unique vegan and gluten-free cookies utilizing specifically designed photo voltaic ovens. This straightforward divergence from conventional factory-based manufacturing helps create a sustainable livelihood for rural ladies and prevents 5 grams of CO2 per cookie from being launched into the ambiance, as would in any other case have occurred from conventional fuel-fired ovens,” clarify the founders in a chat with YSWeekender.

The concept

Dr Minal is knowledgeable dentist turned social entrepreneur. Her husband, Vivek Kabra, an alumnus of IIT Mumbai, carried out rigorous analysis and designed the photo voltaic oven know-how for Kivu. It was conceptualised to assist rural ladies that suffer the results of consuming wooden smoke.

Vaibhav Dugar, CEO of Kivu, is an electronics and telecommunications engineer. He has labored within the media and natural meals industries for over 12 years, and brings his experience on this area on board.

Dr Minal says, “As a practising dentist, I had first-hand expertise of the affect of junk meals and extreme sugar on oral well being and the general immune system of kids. It’s a unusual paradox – on one hand, there are rural households barely which have been barely surviving, whereas city households are affected by extreme consumption of dangerous meals. I needed to discover a resolution for each these issues that may create an affect on society and contribute to the well-being of our planet. Kivu was the reply to that.”

Ladies from rural areas in and round Jalna, Maharashtra are supplied coaching and uncooked supplies for manufacturing and manufacturing. Dr Minal created recipes with out refined sugar, refined flour, synthetic preservatives, or chemical compounds and stored the method easy. The products are hand-baked primarily based on these recipes, and Kivu buys the merchandise from these ladies after making certain high quality requirements are met. This makes the women entrepreneurs in their very own proper – accountable, impartial, and in management.

Photo voltaic baking has the distinct benefit of being a gentler course of that helps in retaining extra vitamins as in comparison with conventional baking. It’s environmentally pleasant as there are not any emissions, from fossil fuels. Additional, it’s extremely conducive to a rural setup because the ovens are modular, require no exterior gas or electrical energy, have zero upkeep value and wish no particular skillset to make use of.

With a core staff of six folks, Kivu’s manufacturing takes place within the Jalna district of Maharashtra and their gross sales and advertising and marketing staff relies in Pune.

The merchandise

At the moment, 5 forms of Kivu cookies are on supply throughout classes of vegan and gluten-free choices. These embody Choco Oats, Rajgira Coconut, Cinnamon, Ginger Lemon, Coco Choco, and a number of other combo packs. The cookies vary in value from Rs 135 for 120g and go as much as Rs 580 for 570g combo packs.

Vaibhav shares, “The common gross sales are comparable for all of the variants we provide, however Kivu Coco Choco Vegan Cookies lead the pack. That is in all probability due to its distinctive mixture of coconut blended with darkish chocolate. Additionally, the photo voltaic baking yields a particular crunch that’s loved by shoppers of all ages.”

Kivu cookies are retailed each on-line and offline, with the vast majority of on-line gross sales happening on their web site – kivu.in. They’re additionally current on a number of ecommerce platforms and over 80 fashionable stores in 20 cities throughout the nation.

“We needed a reputation that may replicate our core beliefs of creating a constructive distinction by channelling our interior vitality. After a number of analysis, we discovered two phrases that basically resonated with us – Ki, which in Japanese means interior vitality and Vu, which in French means to see. And that’s how the phrase Kivu was born,” shares Dr Minal, with a smile.

She highlights that Kivu’s merchandise use no synthetic preservatives, components, flavours, refined sugar or refined flour. “Customers understand wholesome to be tasteless, nevertheless, our merchandise style good and that’s the reason we’ve got seen regular progress in repeat prospects who’ve additionally develop into our model ambassadors. A number of such prospects have taken spoken about us on social media serving to us develop organically,” she provides.

As Kivu is one among few corporations that immediately incorporate daylight within the baking of their merchandise, the staff asserts they’re one of the crucial sustainable meals manufacturers on the planet.

Vaibhav provides, “Having a setup in a rural area has helped us carry extra worth to rural communities. On common, the women who assist us earn roughly Rs 15,000 monthly. This has introduced them pleasure and happiness each for his or her household and houses. The affect continues to be small because of the immense challenges our planet is dealing with, however we’re content material with the little that we’re in a position to do on all fronts – shoppers, planet, and communities.”

The expansion

In line with a report printed in grandviewresearch.com, the world wholesome biscuits market measurement was valued at $2.2 billion in 2018 and is anticipated to broaden at a CAGR of 5.0 p.c from 2019 to 2025. The market progress is attributed to rising consciousness about well being and health and rising choice for wholesome snack merchandise, particularly amongst working professionals and millennials. The report additionally states that rising demand for wholesome snacks, coupled with excessive per capita meals consumption, particularly in creating nations reminiscent of India and China, is contributing to the expansion of the worldwide market.

The staff at Kivu invested near Rs 6 lakh to kickstart operations. They made gross sales of Rs 3 lakh within the first yr (December 2019 – March 2020) and Rs 33 lakh within the earlier monetary yr.

“The pandemic introduced again the deal with well being and we might see folks craving for wholesome meals choices. Additionally, being out there on a number of ecommerce platforms helped us attain varied cities within the nation, which we’d have by no means been in a position to attain by means of conventional retail,” explains Dr Minal.

When requested about opponents, Vaibhav responds with, “We’re presently the one model in India within the sun-baked wholesome snacking area. Globally too, we’re the one ones utilizing the solar’s warmth to bake our merchandise. Our merchandise are hand-baked by rural ladies, and this USP makes us stand aside as being an eco-conscious, health-focused model that’s uplifting rural households.”

Driving on the arrogance of repeat orders positioned by a number of prospects, the staff at Kivu now intends to scale from one cluster to 10, empowering over 200 ladies by 2024. In addition they need to discover different classes of savouries and snacks whereas sticking to their core ideas of utilizing wholesome elements and empowering rural ladies.