'The Indian Government Is Promoting Millets Big Time And In Fact Has Declared 2019 As The National Year Of Millets'

InnerBeing has introduced millets like ragi, jowar and bajra in a contemporary avatar of ready-to-eat and cook mixes ranging from breakfast mixes, hot drinks to protein bars and snacks. The ingredients for the products are sourced directly from the farmers, to make sure that they remain in the purest form. Sandesh Pandhare, co-founder and chairman, InnerBeing Wellness, speaks to Steena Joy about the brand's commitment to bring alive ancient grains and the future roadmap

What is the aim and vision behind InnerBeing?

At InnerBeing what we are basically aspiring to do is bring back the ancient grains, particularly millets, to the consumers in a format which they are already accepting. For example, idli, upma, poha these are all standard items. We are bringing them in millets which are very good for health and they offer very good nutritional benefits. There are about eight varieties of millets like for example jowar, bajra, nachni or ragi. Millets are basically gluten free, they also have very low glycemic index and they are good for diabetics. India is now the diabetic capital of the world. Obesity wise India is now number three in the world. So these millets are helpful for such consumers. They are also very good in proteins. Especially foxtail millet. Ragi is very good in calcium. So what we have done is we have created this product a ragi chocolate drink. This is a fantastic thing for mothers to give to their children. For all our products we have basically focussed on five pillars.

Because we have done research and realised that people are looking for certain health attributes. All our products are gluten free. They are fortified with plant protein. They have no added sugars, so even the cake mix that we have is good for diabetic people because it will not have any sugar. We also have our quinoa and millet blended porridge which is good for young children.