A Kochi-based startup promoted by a techie-turned-foodpreneur has teamed up with a homemaker-turned-chef to launch the country's first box-packed wellness diet products. The products of Food Flavours include five variants of whole-wheat ready-to-cook chapathis 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 its Fresh Start brand of wellness chapatis in northern Kerala for the last one-and-a-half years. "Even those least-urbanised 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 chapathis," he said.

"Wellness diet has been 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 past 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 15,000 to 20,000 chapathis 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. We have also launched a service to customize your chapathi with your choice of ingredients and lesser preservatives if you want to consume them fast," he added.

The chapathis are priced at Rs100 for the packet of 10 with oil papers separating each chapathi. 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. 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," Renjith said. The company has also launched its e-commerce platform www.foodflavours.in recently. Alternatively, Fresh Start brand of healthy food products can also be ordered through WhatsApp at 81130 73731.

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