Understanding the deep-rooted traditions & their importance in human life has been always so fascinating for me from childhood. The Telugu mythological movies watched
along with father, the dishes that I cooked along with my mom, talking to neighbors regarding their own family culture and especially the traditional food processing methods by my grand mom all made me to thrive for more on our traditions which was much more interesting than Masters in Pharmacy from Sri Ramachandra University.

After giving birth to my first kid, I understood that giving him the best doesn’t mean
buying the most expensive but only the effective one. So, me & mom with the help of my grand mom decided to feed him with the best by stone grinding.

But the recipe?

“It’s sprouted ragi flour” and
I was so skeptical a high fibrous grain for a little belly, just like my mom was with me. She explained why it is a better option- ragi though high fibrous our it is easily digestible & even our (South Indians) were used to have only Ragi in early ages of agriculture so we have to gene that suits us, so we can undoubtedly feed a baby.

After this (When I was confident about ragi), my research has started for next stages of
my baby.

What to feed my baby?

I was just astonished to know that our ancestors had recipes for the baby  month wise (of course depends on his gene & region) from my grand mom, I just started searching for the original recipes. Then found Uggu, Ukkiri from Andhra, Kurukku from Kerala, Sathumaavu from Tamilnadu and served my baby along with regular foods till he was 2 ½ year old.

The difference was evident

Yes, my friends, cousins everyone has seen the difference between my son & their

kids, he fell ill health very rarely which my mom observed with my brother when
she gave the sprouted ragi. They requested me for handcrafted foods for their
second ones and so I have to start hiring a lady (rural woman) to handcraft the
foods.

My husband (Satish Kumar P) works for ONGC and my investor, so we have to stay in small village called Malikipuram soon after my marriage. This is how I am able to provide them the handcrafted foods.

Slowly through word-of-mouth many such requirements happened from various states of India and I need to hire 2 more rural women.

But as we are from South-India, North Indians were not that comfortable with the
recipes that we have offered them. Ofcourse I too believe that initially we
should feed a baby based on his/her gene, region and digestion.

Slowly, I started approaching different students, professors belonging to home-science,
food technology etc. to find out the ancient recipes from various parts of
India. However this was not that helpful.

In the year 2017, there was an enquiry from Maharastra, for his triplets to customize handcrafted Maharastrian traditional recipe Bhardi and Katlu for his lactating wife. Then I realized that I have to speak with customers, normal people and their elders. I spoke with each and everyone possible and took as much as information I can get.

I spoke with them and collected information on their traditional culinary, baby foods
& traditional ways of natural treatment for various reasons. Collected recipes like Panjiri, Taniya Congee, Skinny Congee etc. from North West India and by this time we were 20 members strong (Me+ 19 rural women) and the orders were flooded with the new concept of traditional recipes handcrafted for the babies, women & of course for everyone.

“Talking directly with the customers & their elders gave a clue that every product
is not for everyone and they need something personalized according to their
requirements”, So, started working this ‘Customization’ for a new query to handcraft food for her baby with red rice & brown rice in the year August, 2017.

And now till date we have customized 8000+ recipes for different people from various
parts of the world. You can understand how requirements are totally different
for various people. Customization added a good customer base to Nutreat in the
year 2018.

Nutri28-

A recipe that was developed for a 2 year old kid with very poor immunity who lives in
Bangalore, this was totally 6 months research on volunteers available from my
family. The recipe was inspired from Navaratan kichadi which was served
during winters to boost immunity and it is hot cake from Nutreat.

During pandemic while many companies were shutdown we had to work more hours as people trusted us and they felt completely a safer product. I made the processing
completely transparent through various social media like Insta live, Whatsapp
group calls, Zoom calls to which people has responded great. My friend Swetha
added her steps to my journey of handcrafting during the pandemic when I needed
one more person to handle the expansion as by then we were collaborated with
SVM (Smart village movement) to create more employment for the rural women.

The same year 2020, we had to work on a special condition “middle aged women with severe anemia, hairfall, poor eye sight and dull skin approached Nutreat for a natural
supplement a recipe that can serve both herself and her mother with arthritis”
then along with Swetha, I had designed the recipe Nurtures (Collagen Booster) a
research that happened for about 3 months trail & error. The ingredients were chosen from ayurvedic books that are natural but not medicinal. The recipe was total hit and many chose Nurtures to start their day now.

Inspired from the book Nala Bheemakam

We all know Nala & Bhima were great cooks but how many of us know their recipes? I am lucky to have the book from one of my friends (40 years elder to me ;) ) which narrated the many stories with micro sized detailing and we have to dive deep into it to understand the true essence of the book.

Recipes inspired from the book-

Taniya Congee-

A recipe that involves a total of 11 day procedure, sprouting very long to slow roasting
& then stone grinding the ingredients was an immunity booster & natural Vit-B enriched recipes. This recipe was by Goddess Draupadi who gave her spouse Bhima during the Agnyathavasam before he left for any fight.

Seed & Sprout-

Princess Damayanthi used to have this recipe every day for her glowing skin which later
Nala use to offer with love. (They might be tales however I feel our ancestors had narrated us recipes through great stories).

Lost recipes from various parts of the world

Necessity is the mother of invention & of course reinvention, many of customers were career oriented & are busy, they have only one requirement & request
for us that is “Instant & Nutritious”

This made me to dwell recipes from various parts of the world and shortlisted few

Fura- a Lost recipe from African -porridge for Lactating mothers.

Papeda- an Indonesian Porridge (Lost) mostly given for pregnant women & kids.

Genfo- An Ethiopian recipe for women especially and to maintain hydration for longer time.

Peanut Masti- A recipe inspired from peanut butter & healthy alternative of it.

All these were Instant & Crunchy Porridges that are suitable for 1 year & above.

User Based Research- Urjit

Modern lives are so funny we want everything fast & best and so food as well.
Keeping this in Mind a 3 month period user research was done in the year 2021
with one of our premium customer as volunteer.

Criteria-
Mom should be (Working, health conscious & supportive for local foods)
& Kid should be above 1 year.

Demographics-
Metros

Product Criteria- It should be instant to cook, nutritious, all natural, crunchy &
should be loved by both mom & kid.

The final recipe was a porridge with dates that was loved by the kid & mom duo.

All these efforts now made our team strength of 8 women & 120+ rural women. Rural
women who lost their employement during pandemic are all with us now & so
happy to earn  decent wages.