She Quit Her Wall Street Job to Make Nostalgic Desi Ice-cream

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Tanvi Chowdhri took what she calls herself a ‘leap of faith’ and quit her job in Wall Street, New York to come to India and make the Ice-cream Brand, Papacream which makes nostalgic desi ice creams.

Even when she worked in a finance company in Wall Street, New York, Tanvi Chowdhri knew that her real passion lay in culinary arts. Tanvi had grown up in Kolkata and her family of foodies always travelled around the world to enjoy the local cuisines of places. Growing up in Kolkata, the centre of Indian sweets, Tanvi had also developed a sweet tooth.

Even when she was on Wall Street, she used to visit chefs in her free time and research new trends in the culinary world. So, when the time came, Tanvi took a leap of faith and quit her job to come back home to India and set up an ice cream brand. She started Papacream in 2015.

Papacream was first started as an ice cream parlour and later Tanvi began to sell her ice creams in packages aiming to become a packaged ice cream brand in India. She wanted to provide quality ice creams like the foreign brands but without the high price associated with them.

Papacream offers nostalgic ice cream flavours like ‘cotton candy’ that will take you to the memories of eating the pink budiye ke baal (cotton candy) as a kid, ‘cereal milk’ which will remind you of the milk remaining after you finish a bowl of cereal and ‘cookies and cream’ which will taste like eating a cookie dipped in real milk. Papacream also has some quirky flavours like pani puri sorbet, nacho-cheese ice cream and ice cream sushi, and more.

Other flavours include French vanilla, vegan chocofudgy cake, vegan and regular raspberry sorbet, salted caramel and more, alongside ice cream cakes such as vegan coffee chocolate, vegan mango vanilla, biscoff, and more.

Ice creams are priced from Rs 375 onwards, while the cakes cost around Rs 1,500 and up. Papacream’s ice creams are available across 15 cities in India, including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Dehradun, and more.

Tanvi acknowledges that running a business as a young woman was not easy. Most people she hired were either her age or older than her, so taking orders from her was not easy for them. But for other young women who want to start their own business Tanvi has to say, “It’s always about taking that leap of faith. If you have apprehensions or a fear of failure, remember there will be a silver lining, and just keep at it.”

Credits: The Better India

-Staff Reporter