Mother's concern for her child's food choices leads to million-dollar business

A homemaker, a mother…if the need arises, a woman donning the hat of a family person can anytime step forward to become a business woman. This is known and proven. Here is a new business of instant food born out of a mother’s concern for her child’s food choices. Mrudula Reddy at the age of 60 founded Instabites, an instant Indian food brand from Kadapala Agrotech Private Limited. Instabites are produced at a manufacturing facility set up at Sultanpur in Hyderabad. “My Home Science knowledge helped me standardise my traditional recipes whereas my kids fussy eating habits taught me how to pack a food with complete nutritive value,” Instabites founder Mrudula Reddy tells Bizz Buzz in an interview

How did the journey begin?

I always had the interest in cooking nutritious Indian food. In 1985, I graduated with a Masters in Home Science from a college in Hyderabad. I never had the opportunity to work. But, I had the habit of standardising and recording my recipes. After my daughter got married and went to the US, her food habits changed drastically. Seeing the food pictures she uploaded on social media made me realise that there is an urgent need to provide her with healthy home food alternatives. During my Home Science course I had learnt about dehydration methods. I selected the Lyophilisation method as it lets food dehydrate at low temperature and pressure. This keeps the nutritive value and taste of the dish intact.

How easy was the task to develop instant foods?

I put my life on hold during the trial phase. My daughter sent the needed technology from the US. These small scale experiments helped me perfect the art and science of dehydration. There are many types of dehydrating methods apart from frozen foods which are not environmentally or nutrition wise healthy. One method is the thermal dehydration in which high temperature is used resulting in reduced nutrition value. So, while cooking we have to make sure that the temperature does not go beyond 120 degrees. I selected Lyophilisation which lets food undergo the process at low temperature and pressure. The food depending on its moisture level would get dehydrated sometimes at one or three in the midnight. I used to make the food and just put it into the machine. It used to take up to 24-48 hours to dehydrate. From there I brought down the time to 12 hours, a set time which varies on the type of dish. First the food is cooked and later put in the dehydration chamber. Here we maintain low pressure as we want to apply less heat. The water frozen in the food is directly sublimated into gas which means only the water is removed and other elements stay intact. We sent samples to Indian students living in the US. They were so moved by the taste as they miss their home and home cooked food.

The next and obvious step forward was commercialising your invention…How did you proceed further?

After a lot of trials with managing and timing pressure and temperature, I was able to succeed. I sent my daughter these sealed and packed instant home meals made by me. She liked it and started sharing it with her friends. All of them asked me to commercialise and they agreed to take up its sales in the US market. On a smaller scale, till now, we have been producing and selling it through word of mouth. For the past two years I have been selling to contacts and last one-year I got the complete packaging material too. I have sold around one to two lakh Instabites products. The purchase trend is high during vacation period wherein people are travelling abroad. They prefer carrying Indian food from here rather than splurge Euros or Dollars outside. In 2020 I founded Instabites under our registered entity Kadapala Agrotech Private Limited. We took up 16,000 sq ft of land at Sultanpur in Hyderabad and set up the manufacturing plant. Few of the vegetables that we cannot procure are grown through hydroponics. The rest of the ingredients are directly sourced from the farmers.

So far, how has it been donning the hat of a businesswoman?

I started a project worth Rs 30-40 crores in my 60s. My dedication and zeal to provide my children and others with healthy Indian instant food have turned out to be fruitful. Our products have zero per cent moisture and zero preservatives. Our customers are true testimonials. For commercialisation it took me five years. When it came to mass production I had to replicate the method used on 10 kg to 500 kg. It took me about two-three months to set that timing. Here I had the support, but during trials in my kitchen, I was all by myself. We have a bank of 250 recipes. We will be introducing 15 out of these into the market such as peas pulao, dal and sambar rice, pongal, prawn and chicken biryanis, variety of curries including paneer and chicken masala, breakfast dishes such as idli, vada, dosa, upma, millet batters, deserts like kheer and sooji halwa, broccoli-corn in veg and chicken, prawn kabab in non-veg. We also have a range of instant food usually prepared during festivals too. We are also operating in terms of B2B. Here, we are into freezing and dehydration of a few vegetables and donkey milk into powder using Lyophilisation, for third parties.

Tell us about the official launch of Instabites…

Next month we will be officially launching our products. Instabites will be available in stores present across the city and also through online platforms. In the Indian market the margin of profit is low, so going ahead our focus will be on exports to the US. We will be entering the US market soon. Our kitchen capacity is much more but our machine capacity is 1,000 kg per day. When we put 1,000 kg of cooked meal into the dehydration chamber we get 300 kg of dehydrated instant meal. We have a calendar for making these meals, as some dishes take less time to dehydrate while others take more. We manage our 24 hours in such a way that we get two batches each of 500 kg. Right from freezers to the machines we have separated it for vegetarian and non-vegetarian. We are pricing our products in the range of Rs 145 to 165. We are the first Indian instant food providers using Lyophilisation (freeze-dried) method/ technology.

Tell us about your team…

We have mechanised the whole process from scratch which lets us run the manufacturing plant efficiently. We have 25 employees including engineers, food technologists, accountants, among others. As the recipes are standardised by me, we need people only to follow my instructions. From chopping of vegetables to washing of vessels, everything has been mechanised which helps us maintain high standards of hygiene and precision. 10-15 people are hired on need-based for basic prepping of vegetables. Right now, we are sourcing the produce from two farmers here and others near Bangalore.

How do you place Instabites against commercial brands?

When you eat instant foods made through the retort method, the food leaves behind an aftertaste. Our instant foods are healthy, nutritious and tasty. The instant food made through the retort method loses its taste. Moreover, now makers have become very smart, certain names not known to customers are hidden as preservatives in fine prints behind the packet. We are priced Rs 30-40 higher than the available instant food brands in the market. We use pink salt and pure cow ghee whereas, generally others use palmolein oil. Our products are safe, we have developed instant food for infants too. These are cereal mixes made of two fruits and split yellow lentil, we are soon introducing millet mixes. We also have finger foods for infants above seven months. These fruit and vegetable chips are not fried nor do they contain spices. For elders we have soft foods and for pets we have one vegetarian and a non-vegetarian instant food product.

What is your take on food provided at restaurants?

Without generalizing, I would point out that certain dishes served at restaurants have a layer of oil floating. Mobile applications aggregating restaurants, in some cases miss the regulation eye. Our manufacturing units are highly regulated. Our instant foods do not have a drop of oil. We use pure cow ghee in low counts. I have standardized the recipe in such a way that we do not have to use a high quantity of ghee. The moment you add water into our products you get the smell of ghee but you will not be able to feel it. The trans fat level is low and our products have a calorie to protein ratio. We are making portioned healthy meals.