Meet The SHEROES: Aditi Gokhle, Co-founder, All Things Organic

My Story...

It was only last year, during my interactions with Gunjan Soni (CMO, Myntra) that I really got thinking about starting off something in the organic foods space. So Aman Singal and I decided to start All Things Organic in September last year with the mission to make a safe and healthy lifestyle accessible to all.

My passion for this venture comes from my exposure to the high quality standards of fresh produce in Europe. I love spending time in the kitchen, experimenting with different cuisines and recipes.

An alumna of IIM Bangalore, I worked as a strategy consultant with BCG and Korn Ferry in the past, besides leading and successfully scaling up the fresh produce business of agri-biotech major-Mahyco.
 

It started with a very personal need of trying to find safe nutritious food for my family. Talking to friends reinforced that I was not alone in this struggle. After doing some research, I learnt that India does produce high quality organically grown food, but over 70% is exported due to lucrative pricing! Even worse was the discovery that traders, not farmers, were benefitting.

On teams, teammates and roles

Setting up the team was the single most challenging task initially; while I was actively meeting prospective teammates, the changing business dynamics made my search for the ‘right’ candidate quite tedious. But soon I realised that in a new venture, your business will need to keep adapting; hence the skill I look for in my team-mates is the ability to adapt, enjoy volatility and thrive in changing scenarios.

Interestingly, this is something I had preached as a Leadership & Talent Consultant while at Korn Ferry; but I only understood the real meaning of this in the past few months.

Being an employee and being an entrepreneur both have their own pros and cons. Most people don’t start out as entrepreneurs, but always have the urge to become one at some point. They choose to start their own business only after some level of work experience.

‘You always look for motivations’: On beginnings and hardships

I was working with leading companies like BCG. I worked with the top management teams of leading companies across sectors, supporting them on strategic problem-solving and helping create, operationalize business strategies. Being an employee helped me learn critical skills that enabled me to be a leader.

But to start your own venture, you always look for motivations. For me, the motivation was to find safe nutritious food for my family. Indeed, in the initial stages of entrepreneurship, money is a little bit of an issue especially when you have been in a job and on a fixed income. However, if you can secure enough venture capital or a good line of credit, you can scrape by without thinking about quitting.

‘Over 75% of our orders are from repeat customers’: The numbers speak

In many ways, organic food is a rapidly growing concept in India with the market expected to reach around $1.36 billion by 2020 and growing at 25-30% each year.

Over 75% of our orders are from repeat customers, thus validating our raison d'être while signalling a healthy customer service 
experience. The response to our private label, Organic Origins, is overwhelming; almost 75% of our sales is via our brand. We have offices in Delhi and Mumbai, where we deliver our entire range including farm fresh fruits and vegetables. In addition, we are shipping all products pan-India, except perishables.

We are also looking at launching a range of freshly processed organic products, children’s favorites, homemade recipes and healthy snacks. In addition, we shall be setting up distribution channels for Organic Origins across modern trade, key institutions and international markets.

‘Eat healthy--Stay healthy’: Looking through the windshield

Over the next 12 months, we will be targeting 20,000 households with monthly spend of Rs 4000 per month; along with our private label sales. At the gross margin level (after adjusting for logistics costs) we are profitable; we will continue to better these numbers with scale. We would like to garner a major share of the wallet of a household’s organic food needs – a microcosm which we would like to perfect.

Eat healthy--Stay healthy. Make a healthy choice--choose organic. Opt to eating organic products and choose a better health condition for a longer term. Chemical-free consumption is the best one can think of and let us all engage into this habit.