This woman entrepreneur is making organic food more accessible through her D2C grocery brand
Mumbai-based Zama Organics Founded by Shriya Naheta Wadhwa follows a farm-to-fork model to make organic food more accessible to people at the click of a button.
When Shriya Naheta Wadhwa came to India in 2015, after taking her degree in International Relations and Global Business from the University of Southern California (USC), she realised that most people in the country have little to no access to organic food. She began to research organic produce, farming, and types of products that grow in India. And spoke with farmers about how to have a sustainable future for the organic food business. Her eureka moment was when she realised the variety of produce grown in the Indian subcontinent.
This all led to her establishing Zama Organics in 2017. Zigma Organics offers readily available organic products that customers can easily buy with a click of a button. Customers can place their Zama orders on its app, website, and via WhatsApp.
But the ride to success was not always so smooth for Shriya. “One of the challenges during the initial stages was organising the supply chain since organic items have a shorter shelf life and spoil easily due to spoilage and infestation or storage and handling issues. I learnt this the hard way and struggled to meet delivery deadlines. We had to come up with solutions across the board — from logistics to storage to packaging — with our source location in mind,” explains the 28-year-old entrepreneur in an interview with HerStory.
Even though her first core team was people hired through referrals and recommendations, later she began to hire from popular colleges like IIM and now they are a 90 members team that is passionate about organic food and the impact of the alternative on the environment. Since its inception, Zama Organics has seen exponential growth. Since the pandemic inspired people to lead a healthier lifestyle, they were conscious about what they put in their system. The organic food business became popular more than ever.
Shriya explains, “We have an online presence through our website that caters to consumers in Mumbai while also extending to select brick and mortar stores across 16 cities. Our clientele is a mix of B2B (restaurants and cafes), private labels (e-commerce), and B2C (doorstep delivery via mobile app and website). Some of these include Saukhyam in Goa, Good By Nature in Pune, The Roots in Delhi, among others.” Currently, the team is focusing on expanding the company’s geographical footprint.
-Staff Reporter
