The snacks and edibles available for infants, toddlers, and children aren’t healthy. Most of the snacks are made of processed sugar, fat, and refined flour. The kids end up getting sick often or end up becoming obese. To tackle this issue, Rukmini Banerjee launched the brand ‘The Growing Giraffe.’ The brand creates healthy snacks for children.
Early Life and Education
Rukmini Banerjee was born and brought up in Kolkata. She pursued the law in Pune and moved back to Kolkata. Rukmini practiced as a lawyer in Kolkata for a few years. After some time, she pursued a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from University College London. After completing her course, she finally settled in Mumbai.
The Idea of The Growing Giraffe
The idea of launching the brand came to her mind when her son started falling sick often. She realized that when she was a child, she never fell sick that often. Rukmini also started looking for healthy snacks for her son in the market.
A lot of snacks claimed to be healthy but were filled with sugar and processed refined flour. She couldn’t find any product that she wanted to give her son. Rukmini wanted to give her son the right nutrients to build his immunity. The idea of launching ‘The Growing Giraffe’ entered her mind.
Starting with Cookies and Bars from Home Kitchen
Rukmini initially started a home kitchen. The idea was to provide nutritious and healthy food for children. She started making items like beetroot idli. The idea of a homemade kitchen serving purees and homemade food didn’t work out well. Rukmini learned people were more interested in healthy and nutritious cookies and bars. She learned to make them, and they turned out to be good and tasty.
At a flea market, a PR professional approached Rukmini. She was invited to attend a boot camp. During that time, she learned to work on her packaging and certain other important factors to become commercially viable. The knowledge gained helped her to overcome her mistakes.
Feedback and Product Improvement
Rukmini asked her friends to try her products and give her feedback about them. From the feedback received, she constantly changed her products. The ragi cookies of the brand are the best-selling cookies. Cacao peanut butter bars are gaining popularity. Cacao is brought in from Kerala and is rich in antioxidants.
Profits Made by The Growing Giraffe
The Growing Giraffe launched two types of health bar and cookies in 2020. Every month approximately 150 units of the products get shipped off to consumers from Amazon. The startup had a turnover of 1.36 lakhs in a year. Initially, she invested an amount of rupees 2 lakhs in her start-up. Most of the money went into designing the logo of the company and creating a website.
Motivation and Validation
Rukmini’s motivation comes from the feedback she receives from her customers. Because of the prevailing COVID situation, she had to put her product’s deliveries on hold. Many of her customers reached out to her and told her they missed her products. Appreciation for her products proves to be her biggest source of validation.
One customer told Rukmini, “I started buying the snacks initially for my children. But now, even I like them too much. It is easy to carry them in my bag. All the products are rich in nutrients and antioxidants. My kids love eating them. I buy a range of products every month. I have also recommended my other friends to try out the products.”
Future Plan
Rukmini avoids spending money on social media marketing. Instead, she prefers to post the feedback she receives from her clients. The feedback and testimonials have helped her gain popularity and reach out to more people. Rukmini plans to launch more tasty and nutritious products for children. She wishes to promote healthy eating among children. differently abled
If you loved this story, read a story about how Anant Vaishya a differently-abled student developed an app ‘Gud Ke Saathi’ to help farmers sell jaggery without middlemen.
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