Annapurna Swadisht forays into the D2C segment with Olonkar

The company, through its D2C presence, will offer a wide range of ethnic and cultural cuisines in a hygienic, ready-to-eat and affordable format.

The company has partnered with Turiyo Foundation, a social organisation working to empower women across villages in eastern India, for quality procurement of the products, including GohonaBori from PurboMedinipur, Pickles from Bihar, Papads from Jharkhand and other products including Ghee and Honey.

Annapurna has partnered with Big Basket and plans to take the Olonkar range of snacks to key markets across India in the coming months.

Commenting on the launch, ShreeramBagla, Co-founder& Chairman, Annapurna Swadisht, said, “Being a growth-stage company, we are constantly looking at avenues to create value for our stakeholders. With Olonkar, we seek to capitalise on the exponential opportunity offered by the D2C segment across the country.

"This endeavour is even more special because every product under the Olonkar brand is sourced from women across villages in Bengal – providing them with employment and Aatmanirbharta(self-independence) every day. We are extremely gratuitous to TuriyoFoundation for partnering with our empowerment initiative”.

The inaugural Olonkar product range includes GohonaBori - an exquisite cultural delicacy known for its ornamental shape with designer motifs.

Made from lentil and quality poppy seeds, using authentic 100% manual grinding and battering techniques,GohonaBori has been revived by Annapurna and has witnessed high demand at the pilot stage. For more details on GohonaBori do visit http://gohonabori.in   

Speaking on the initiative, Sandip Maity, Director, Turiyo Foundation, said, “We are proud to preserve the dying art of culinary skills from Bengal’s hinterlands and celebrate the artisans by taking their product national under Olonkar. Our partnership with Annapurna will witness many other rare products sourced from eastern and north-eastern Indian villages.

"Our vision is to retain the authentic taste using 100% traditional production techniques and process innovation to enable a modern spin onthe age-old art of delicious cuisine. Olonkarrange will serve as a foundation for the change we wish to see at Turiyo and Annapurna together.”

Annapurna Swadisht commenced operations in 2016 and offers more than 35 SKUs ranging from extruded snacks to pellet-based snacks to potato snacks to namkeens to candies and cakes.

The company, led by ShreeramBagla, Co-founder and Chairman, has two manufacturing facilities in West Bengal.

It sells quality food and beverage products at affordable price points of Rs. 5 to Re. 1 across Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Assam.

Annapurna currently has around 400 distributors and will look for firms around West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar.

Founded in 2016 as Annapurna Agro Industries, it ventured into packaged snacks in 2020.

During the pandemic, a considerable gap was left as many snack manufacturers shut up shop. The company decided to venture into packaged snacks on its own as demand outpaced supply. In June 2022, Annapurna clocked monthly sales of INR 11.05 crore (USD 1.4mn) and at present, has a team of 490 employees.

Annapurna Swadisht is on-route to going public through NSE’s Emerge and will raise growth capital to fund its aggressive plans comprising of setting up additional manufacturing units in Bengal and expanding its product range to cater to north-eastern and eastern markets.