Dehydrated veggies for your kitchen woes
Hyderabad-based startup Zilli’s makes preservative-free ready-to-cook products
Hyderabad: Most of us have seen our older generation sun-dry papad and chips and keep them stored for almost two to three years without affecting their taste, smell, or quality. Taking inspiration from this technique, Hyderabad-based entrepreneur Anubhav Bhatnagar founded Zilli’s, formerly known as Kitchen D’lite. His startup makes 100 per cent natural, vegan and gluten-free Ready-To-Cook (RTC) products with a shelf life of 12-18 months. These products include powdered and dehydrated packets of onions, garlic, lemon, green chili, and tomato.
“I have been passionate about cooking for a long time and since me and my wife both are working, it becomes difficult for us to allocate time for cooking on a daily basis. That is when we thought about making products that are similar to the pastes – ginger-garlic, tomato – available in the market without the need for preservatives. We were looking for healthier alternatives without compromising on taste and shelf life. We started experimenting in our kitchen and developed our first two products – onion and garlic powder – in a span of two months. That was in 2018 and by September of the same year we were able to sell our product on online platforms like Amazon,” said Bhatnagar, who is an XLRI alumnus.
In October of 2018, the company – known as Kitchen Delights then – was looking at scaling up their products base and moved to other items like lemon, green chili, ginger, and tomato powder along with providing dehydrated flakes of the same items. Over the course of two years, the company – that got rebranded as Zilli’s in February 2020 – has 18 products to its credit which includes dehydrated flakes and powders and also RTC masalas like Kolkata Jhalmuri, Lemon Tea, and Sattu. It also has Ready-To-Eat products in the Aam Papad category.
“We currently have a one-tonne capacity unit and are incubated under ALEAP We-Hub, supported by Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog, and Government of India. We are working on improving our focus in the Hyderabad market and we are selling our products offline through 30 stores in the city and plan to scale it up to 500 stores in the next few months. Our products are USFDA approved and we are working on our own distribution channel as well,” said the entrepreneur.
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