How has the landscape of nutritional snacking shaped up in the past couple of years?
With the growing awareness towards health we see an emerging trend with greater focus on Plant Based Products which are also Natural, Tasty and Easy to Consume. In addition, the consumers are also becoming more Calorie and Label Conscious. They would want to know why they want to consume and for what. They would also at some point want to see a visible direct impact of consumption on their overall health. We at Nutrizoe kept the same in mind while designing Lactobites. The Bars were kept all natural by using lot of Fruits/Nuts/Herbs/Seeds and other Indian Super foods and Ingredients to make the bars more effective. From a taste and appeal perspective we did create 2 flavours. While one was more on the traditional taste palette of Fenugreek the second variant of Fennel/Berries was formulated to appeal more to the millennials.
Special importance was given to aid the bars with Protein and other Micronutrients to take care of New Mother daily dietary needs. Since today’s generation likes everything on the go, the format of energy bars was used rather than Powder/Tablets.
How did you deal with the pandemic induced disruptions?
We launched our product in March and then Covid hit us. Sensing the change, we moved everything to online platforms, and took that time to connect with the key parenting platforms. Our product Infact, became a necessity product as new moms were unable to find social support to address their Nourishment needs.
As a prevention doctors visits moved to online consultations, with which we too moved our buying process , explainer videos , lactation services through us with the online medium. With great response we kept on doubling our reach each month.
Since the focus on our company has always been on nourishment, Covid only helped us in making consumers more aware of the healthy mind and healthy body needs. It also helped new D2C companies like us in gaining more acceptability on the E-commerce space.
It made our marketing campaigns more acceptable and gain more traction thereby reducing our cost to go and advertise on the POS. On the production side we were able to automate almost 90% of our Supply chain management and controlling production. It also aided in moving our inventory directly to online availability thereby reducing our turnaround times for fulfilment.
What is the unique value proposition of your brand?
Two very important things set us apart: Innovation and Purpose.
Let me elaborate on both the points. So, at Nutrizoe we will never launch a product only for taste or the format is doing well. Any products genesis will be what is the problem we are addressing at large and how it will benefit our consumers. What it essentially does for the consumers is, it helps them in consuming something with a clear cut demonstrated use and it helps the company to create products which are “Need to have, than Good to have”.
Secondly, we focus on Innovation: Innovation in the formats and identification of the issue that have not been identified in the past or have been underserved. These 2 qualities set us apart in our approach and will help us in building a sustainable brand.
Case in point is our first underserved problem and a new format to address it viz: Breastfeeding. It has been a global issue, gaining emphasis and garnering attention in the last 2-3 years. While the problem has been addressed more through Medicines and formats like Capsules, Powders, Granules etc with only 2-3 ingredients and high on sugar little attention was paid to “What New Mother would like to eat or address the problem”.
Lactobites – Lactation aiding bars is all natural with more than 25 ingredients in it that includes not only 1 galactague but about 5 galactague blended in a neo traditional way. Secondly, our bars come with zero prep time unlike mixing with milk or water etc. Thirdly, most importantly, the bars have been formulated to keep daily RDA of a lactating mother in mind. Fourthly, we have a patent pending propriety blend that boosts metabolism irrespective of the key galactague that aid weight loss as well. Lastly, the bars are made up of more than 40% dates that are proven known to be rich in iron content that helps a new mom recover faster from the lost Hb levels. We feel this is addressing an age-old problem in a new manner.
Do you have any expansion plans in near future?
As we said, we want to be with women through her journey right from Puberty to Menopause. While we would continue to deepen the penetration of Lactobites in the coming year we already have an exciting line up of innovative products in FY 22 with 12 SKU and 8 SKU in FY23. The products that are currently under development will cater to a larger audience like Teenage population to Young Women. We are bringing in Formats which will appeal to the Millennial Audiences as they would be Unique, Tasty and Easy to Prepare. At business level we aim to achieve a top line revenue of 50 Cr top in the next 3-4 years.
