How Two Sisters Used ‘Guilt-free’ Snacking

Anindita and Suhasini Sampath launched Yoga Bar in 2014, which aims to promote ‘guilt-free’ snacking through healthy snacks and beverages that have no artiﬁcial colours, flavours, or preservatives.

Anindita and Suhasini Sampath were always interested in starting a business that has a deep impact on people. According to them, they were both health freaks and when they were in the US, they used to wonder about the number of choices in the healthy eating section. They used to go to Yoga classes frequently, and once when they were eating a protein bar, Anindita commented casually that if she made that protein bar, she would name it ‘Yoga Bar’.

Years later ‘Yoga Bar’ is a reality and is now a fast-selling product in the Indian market. And Sproutlife Foods, their parent company, is a Bangalore-based manufacturer of high-quality branded foods for the rapidly growing health foods segment.

The sisters say that they smashed the belief that health and taste do not go hand in hand. Because the top priority of Yoga Bar is taste and then comes health. “The real challenge in developing all-natural snacks is not the shelf life, but the taste,” says the nutritionist and head of new product development/ research and development of Yoga Bar, Praveen Bhatt, “The team of nutritionists do intense brainstorming to come out with products that the market lacks. Premium raw materials collected from farmers go under two levels of sorting and grading. They are processed with zero use of synthetic flavours or preservatives.”

Anindita and Suhasini believe that fitness is mostly about what you eat. “It’s not about losing weight or anything. Clean eating is very important for everyone and 80 percent of fitness is based on what you eat. Workout and everything make the rest,” opines Anindita.

They say that the company has shown 100 per cent growth year on year and that it has served over 100 million customers to date. Starting with just four products, the brand now sells protein bars, breakfast bars, muesli, oats, antioxidant mix, ayurvedic juices, trail mix and peanut butter.

“We try to make sure that we always give back to the community. One per cent of our profits from the essentials range is put towards the education of farmers’ children,” Suhasini says.

Anindita was added to the list of Businessworld’s ‘40 Under 40’ in 2019, for her successful entrepreneurial journey over the years.

Apart from making the products available on all major online shopping platforms and popular stores, Yoga Bar also focused on expanding to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The duo expects to make Yoga Bar among the top three food brands in the country in the coming years.

Credits: The Better India

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-Staff Reporter