How Two Mothers Built a D2C Food Brand | Shauravi Malik (Slurrp Farm)

"The interesting thing was that you have the dream and the vision, but you realize the answer is your grandmother's kitchen."

This insight from Shauravi Malik highlights a core theme: sometimes the most innovative solutions involve looking back at traditional wisdom. While aiming to disrupt the children's food market with modern, healthy options, Shauravi and her co-founder realized the true market gap wasn't for Western-style purees, but for bringing back nutritious, traditional Indian ingredients like millets.

Shauravi Malik is the Co-Founder of Wholsum Foods, the parent company of the popular children's food brand Slurrp Farm. An Economics graduate from St. Stephen's College and Cambridge University, she spent years in high-profile finance roles at J.P. Morgan and Richard Branson's Virgin Group before launching her venture. Driven by the mission to improve children's nutrition in India using supergrains like millets, Slurrp Farm navigated early manufacturing challenges and a challenging offline distribution landscape before a strategic pivot to digital during COVID-19 saw the company grow significantly, reaching a monthly run rate of approx. ₹1.2 crores.

Key Insights from the Conversation:

• Market Need Discovery: Initial assumptions about market needs (like fruit/veg purees) can be wrong, even with research. Finding the real pain point (lack of healthy, millet-based options) was key.
• Manufacturing Hurdles: Finding partners willing to innovate and produce genuinely healthy products at scale, rather than variations of existing unhealthy options, was a major early challenge.
• Ecosystem Impact: Policy changes like GST and Demonetization significantly levelled the playing field for startups by simplifying interstate commerce and financial D2C

Chapters:

• 0:00:48 - Intro: Shauravi Malik & The Slurrp Farm Story
• 0:01:18 - Early Career: From Cambridge to Investment Banking & Virgin
• 0:10:16 - The Genesis of Slurrp Farm: Identifying the Gap in Children's Food
• 0:18:40 - Starting Up: Vision vs. Reality & Initial Product Ideas
• 0:24:25 - Finding the Right Product: The Ragi Cookie Journey & Manufacturing Challenges
• 0:32:09 - Launching Slurrp Farm: Navigating Pre-GST India & Early Go-To-Market
• 0:37:07 - The Painful Journey of Building Offline Distribution
• 0:43:19 - Funding Journey: Friends, Family & Finding the Right Partners
• 0:45:27 - The COVID Pivot: Embracing Digital & Achieving Profitability
• 0:59:41 - Product Evolution: From Cereals to Dosas, Pancakes & Beyond
• 1:09:53 - The Role of Co-Founder Umang & Design-First Branding
• 1:19:59 - Understanding the D2C Landscape in India
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