The Sampath sisters: Raising the bar with Yoga Bar

Suhasini and Anindita Sampath have built their brand Yoga Bar from scratch on the strength of their mission to make snacking healthy. Now, they plan to launch a new range of products for women’s health needs and their avowed aim is to reach the Rs 500 crore bracket in the next two years.

A few days before I set about my Diwali gifting in 2014, I picked up on a promotional email I had received about healthy snack bars and called the given number to enquire. The person who picked up, Suhasini, told me all about the start-up launched with her sister and how she herself handled customers. I ditched mithai that year to send all my friends Yoga Bar hampers, meticulously managed by Suhasini. My friends and I loved the crunchy, nutty, all-natural energy snack bars.

Cut to 2022, and sisters Suhasini and Anindita Sampath have scaled up Yoga Bar to a Rs 200 crore brand, on the strength of their mission to make snacking healthy. At the holding company Sproutlife Foods, Suhasini Sampath is the Chief Executive Officer responsible for driving business results and brand-building initiatives while Anindita Sampath is the COO who oversees operations, R&D, product inventory and technology. Their vision is to build a global health food brand, while raising awareness about nutrition labels.

How did the idea of launching Yoga Bar take shape? What are the highlights of the brand’s journey so far?

Going back to when we were new to the corporate lifestyle and worked till odd hours like every beginner, we called ourselves ‘busy foodies’ - we would keep snacking and that gradually crept into the cracks of our daily routines without realising the impact it had on our bodies. We’ve all grown up surrounded by all kinds of snacks. With it, however, comes a load of calories and toxins. This was precisely what drew us to the idea of a healthy snack brand. We wanted more out of our snacks, but retaining the decadent taste our tastebuds cannot let go of. The response to our brand has been phenomenal, and we’ve expanded our product portfolio to include something for everyone, right from a granny to a little toddler. One of the key milestones that we are proud of is that within a span of eight years, we have been able to grow our brand value to Rs 200 crore with 100% year-on-year growth. We began with protein bars and soon after, forayed into creating innovative varieties of muesli and oats. Following the success of the breakfast cereal segment, we then ventured into peanut butters and Ayurvedic juices. The learning has been great through the entire process and we aim to transform the industry through innovative iterations - our dark chocolate cranberry muesli was the first of its kind in India.

How did you go about building the brand and what are your current initiatives in that aspect? What kind of spends do you allocate to advertising and marketing?

We started Yoga Bar from scratch with zero shortcuts to success. In fact, the last fundraiser was inked one day before my daughter was born. We are driven by the mission of transforming people’s relations with food and revolutionizing the health food ecosystem in the country. We worked with over 50 food experts to put together the perfect set of products for our consumers. The guiding principle that led our brand journey was to offer a product, designed by nutritionists and not marketers, that promises 100% clean and natural ingredients with exemplary taste. Our major milestone would be serving over 100 million customers to date, since the brand came into existence. We strive to constantly experiment and reinvent our products to give our customers as nutritionally rich a composition as a snack can offer. We do some performance marketing within channels and have acquired a loyal community and presence in retail stores, but we have never actually run any marketing campaign beyond sampling and word of mouth!

What is news on the manufacturing and product innovation front, after you added muesli, peanut butter, whey protein, etc., to your offerings? What is the USP of your brand vis-a-vis competition in the healthy snacking category?

Our production growth is immense and to sustain that, we are currently looking at business-led propositions to grow our brand. Because we want to have strict control over our product quality, we will soon be shifting into our new 60,000 sq. ft manufacturing facility in Tumkur. Unlike other brands, owning our manufacturing allows us to innovate quickly without spending as much as the big FMCGs. This is definitely one of our USPs. We believe that we can make a healthier and cleaner version of every packaged food that's out there right now. So, one of our strategies is to quickly expand our product portfolio and disrupt new categories. At the moment, we are entering a new category every month and that’s only because strong focus on R&D and innovation allows us to bring winner products in every category we enter. We recently entered the kids’ snacking segment introducing chocolate flavoured, multi-grain cereals consisting of five whole grains (jawar, bajra, ragi, quinoa, oats) and two dals (moong & channa). We hold a value proposition very different from our competition. Each of the ingredients that we choose has definite nutritive value. We stay away from ingredients that contribute to empty calories. Our use of sugar is minimal. We don’t use any artificial sweeteners, preservatives, or colouring agents. Since the very beginning, we have been very focussed on our packaging design, using bright, pop, happy colours. It has now become our identity.

How has your brand fared in the last couple of years?

The launch of our breakfast segment captured about 20% market-share very quickly and so we realized the potential of our brand proposition, eventually heavily investing in expansion. The venture into the kids’ segment is a strategic move, keeping in mind the reasonable pricing, ensuring penetration into Tier II & Tier III cities. Amid the pandemic, we had to very quickly pivot from an offline-heavy distribution through 6,000 retail stores which contributed to almost 90% of our revenue, to online channels like website and e-commerce marketplaces. This enabled us to clock 3x growth in FY21 alone.

What next from the parent company Sproutlife Foods? How do you want to grow the brand from here?

Our next move would be to further our products on an international scale and improve our local reach from 10 cities to as many markets as we can tap into. We aim to reach the Rs 500 crore bracket in the next two years and are already working on ways to get there. We want to bust pre-conceived notions and motivate women towards a healthy diet through a new range of women-specific products that cater to women’s health needs. One of the milestones we wish to cross is to expand our presence offline and move to 4x the number of retail and chain outlets in the next three years from the current 10,000. Our focus is going to be on increasing offline sales along with online sales in the upcoming financial year. We want to become one of the top three food brands in the country.

What have been your big learnings so far in the Yoga Bar journey? What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs who want to build a business from scratch?

More people are beginning to understand the importance of nutrition and are scouting for snacks/food products with a wholesome and clean composition. We want to be part of their journey and help them sustain that lifestyle. The Clean Label revolution in India was pioneered by us, as we noticed that many FMCG brands are not completely honest with their customers. It is of utmost importance to us that we adhere to our own principles and also drive others to follow suit. We would advise budding entrepreneurs that their principles must be as important to them as their brand’s growth and success. When you create something, try to contribute to the betterment of others, do your research, have a plan, get creative and simply give your best!

Published on: Monday, March 07, 2022, 01:56 PM IST