Dr. Prithwi Singh’s Khetika: Building India’s Clean Label Food Giant

How a veterinarian-turned-entrepreneur is scaling ₹247 crore revenue by owning the entire supply chain, from Rajasthan farms to Mumbai kitchens

The first clue that Dr. Prithwi Singh wasn’t building a typical food startup came when he started researching stones.

Not just any stones. Specific red stones from Karoli, Rajasthan, which would then be sent to Jodhpur to be carved into grinding wheels, before being shipped to Unjha, Gujarat, where they would cold-grind spices at industrial scale. This wasn’t the kind of problem most IIM Ahmedabad graduates with BCG and Reliance Retail on their resumes typically solve. Most founders in 2017 were figuring out how to go asset-light. Prithwi was buying medieval grinding equipment.

You would be surprised to know that in India, whatever stone chakis are there, they are not made from original stones. They are made of artificial stones, which is called emery stones, made of cement. We were shocked. We found out the right stone for spices is red stone coming from Karoli.

The stone saga is vintage Prithwi. Where most entrepreneurs see a commodity market ripe for branding, he saw a supply chain riddled with adulteration. Where others saw efficiency in outsourcing, he saw the need to own every step from farm to package. Where the playbook said “asset-light,” he built four manufacturing plants.

Today, Khetika, the clean label food brand he co-founded, posted ₹247 crore in revenue for FY25, growing at over 50% year-on-year. In July 2025, the company raised $18 million in Series B funding led by the Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office, bringing total capital raised to approximately $25 million. The company is targeting ₹2,000 crore by FY28.

Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.

The Adulteration Crisis and the SuperZop Origin

Prithwi’s entry into food wasn’t accidental. With a degree in Veterinary Medicine from Bikaner and 15 years in retail and agri-business, he understood the science of what happens to food between harvest and consumption.

Today if you see in the food supply chain, there are huge adulterations. One is poor quality raw material, ingredients which are fungal infested. Second is adulteration to make it look good or reduce cost: white marble powder mixed in cumin, different colors and dyes in chilies, polishing in mustard. Third is high temperature processing, because of commercial level production, nutrients are burnt. And fourth is preservatives to increase shelf life.

The numbers tell the story. Brand penetration in India’s staples segment hovers at just 10-15% overall. Spices have achieved 45-50% penetration, but batters sit at a mere 4-5%. More telling: clean label brands represent less than 2% of the entire market. In 2024, Singapore and Hong Kong banned MDH and Everest spice products after detecting Ethylene Oxide, a carcinogenic pesticide.

Prithwi saw the opening and made a contrarian bet: own the entire supply chain.

The story begins in 2016-17 with SuperZop, a B2B agri-commerce platform he founded to connect farmers with kirana stores. “Initially we started distributing to kirana stores in Mumbai,” Prithwi recalls. “It was more of selling commodities, loose kind of, 25 kg and more.”

But as SuperZop scaled, he noticed something. The quality he was sourcing directly from farmers was exceptional. Everything that happened afterward degraded it. “We realized that to get particular quality, it is not possible if you buy from somewhere in middle. You need to go to the source location.”

So in 2021, Khetika was born, not as a replacement for SuperZop, but as its consumer-facing brand. SuperZop still serves 15,000+ kirana stores and contributes 70-75% of revenue. But Khetika represents the future: a zero-preservative, stone-ground, single-origin staples brand.

The product portfolio spans four categories:

• Spices (35-40% of revenue): Whole, powdered, and soon blended varieties

• Dry fruits (25%): Makhana, nuts, seeds

• Staples (15-20%): Rice, pulses, millets

• Fresh (10%): Idli/dosa batters and chutneys, limited to 4 cities due to 10-day shelf life

Farmer Knowledge Centers: The 12-Month Cycle

Here’s where Prithwi’s veterinary background becomes relevant. He understands agroclimatic conditions and knows that the best turmeric comes from Sangli because of specific growing conditions you can’t replicate in Punjab. He knows cumin from Western Rajasthan tastes different from cumin grown elsewhere.

But knowing where to source is only half the battle. You also have to convince farmers to change centuries-old practices.

When you go to farmers and tell them make good quality product, farmers are ready to do that. However, the market does not give remuneration commensurate to the good quality. The biggest problem is non-standardization. So we have our internal quality norms. We tell farmers these are the best practices, these are the quality norms. If you fulfill those quality norms, we will buy.

Khetika’s solution: Farmer Knowledge Centers, starting in Jaisalmer and Barmer districts of Western Rajasthan. The company teaches farmers Integrated Pesticide Management (IPM), methods to grow crops without harmful pesticides. They set quality standards, test for toxins, and guarantee purchase of produce that meets specifications.

In areas where Khetika first established centers, IPM adoption has grown from 5% to 20%. The company now sources from approximately 25,000 farmers across 15 states.

But there’s a catch. Agriculture operates on 12-month cycles. “If you make one change this year, it takes 12 months to learn from those things and repeat it again,” Prithwi notes. “Gestation period in agriculture is very high.”

This is anti-Silicon Valley. No growth hacking. No viral loops. Just patient capital and patient execution.

Why Own Manufacturing? The Innovation Argument

Prithwi’s decision to own manufacturing facilities contradicts every venture capital playbook written in the last decade. But he wasn’t building from a playbook.

We don’t find any playbook for manufacturing this. For example, when we started batters, we were getting complaints that the product is not having shelf life initially. So we did innovation. We are first in the country, rather only in the country today, who are not only using RO water, but pasteurized RO water for grinding.

The innovation list is extensive:

• Cold stone grinding: Processing at 4°C to prevent protein sourness in sprouted moong batter

• Pasteurized water: Killing bacteria at source rather than adding preservatives

• Nozzle-based packaging: For batters, solving the “messy zip pouch” problem

Khetika operates four manufacturing plants for fresh products (Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad) to serve the 10-day shelf life constraint. They have specialized centers for makhana in Bihar and spices in Unjha.

The stone research went deep. “We found out for the spices the right stone is red stone coming from Karoli. It goes to Jodhpur for making those machinery and then it comes to Unjha.”

The margin profile justifies the complexity. Blended spices, which require the most processing, command approximately 50% margins. The key insight: more value addition equals higher margins.

Three Trends, One Brand

Prithwi’s thesis rests on three consumer shifts happening simultaneously:

Health Consciousness: “Post-COVID this trend has become stronger. Consumers want health.” Khetika’s zero-preservative positioning hits this directly. Their specialty range, Ragi batter and sprouted moong cheela, is growing faster than base products. “We have seen people replacing ketchups and sauces with chutneys, not only with dosa, with other products also.”

Convenience Revolution: Quick commerce is rewriting FMCG rules in India. Khetika’s revenue from platforms like Blinkit and Zepto now represents 15-25% of sales and is the fastest-growing channel. “The batter category is exploding because it’s difficult for people to buy rice and urad dal and make batter and then make dosa.”

The batter category itself is instructive. Only two national brands exist: ID Fresh (market leader) and Khetika (number two). Scaling fresh products with 10-day shelf life requires manufacturing footprint most startups can’t afford.

Return to Indian Palate: “Indian taste is coming back. Consumer wants the taste their forefathers ate. Indians are not shying away, not only in food, even you see clothing, tourism.” He frames it simply: “From pasta to dosa.”

These are three mega trends emerging. And Khetika is sitting in center of these three mega trends.

This trend favors Khetika’s single-origin sourcing. Consumers don’t just want turmeric, they want Rajapuri Haldi from Sangli. They want cumin from Western Rajasthan, coriander from Ramganj.

The Distribution Strategy and What’s Next

Khetika’s omnichannel approach leverages different consumer behaviors:

Traditional Trade serves monthly shoppers through SuperZop. Quick Commerce captures convenience-seekers with smaller SKUs optimized for frequent delivery. Modern Trade and E-commerce build national presence selectively. Export markets in MENA and Europe are launching post-Series B.

“Why is Amul the largest brand today?” Prithwi asks. “Because you use milk every day. The more frequently used any brand, the stronger brand happens and the lesser marketing cost it needs.”

Batters (high-frequency) build brand trust that transfers to spices and dry fruits (lower-frequency). It’s a flywheel, not a funnel.

The company is near break-even in FY25, having significantly narrowed losses. The path to ₹2,000 crore by FY28 rests on three levers: product expansion (launching blended spices, value-added makhana), channel expansion (export markets, D2C website launching soon), and targeted digital marketing focused on point-of-purchase activation.

Notably, Khetika isn’t planning ATL advertising or celebrity endorsements yet. The focus is reach before resonance.

The Hard Parts and the Funding Shift

I pressed Prithwi on what’s uniquely difficult about scaling in agriculture versus other sectors.

“One is sourcing. If you can’t source good quality, you are not true to your brand. Sourcing is very fragmented because farmers’ land holding is small.” Then there’s the storage challenge. Harvest happens once a year, consumption is year-round. Certain chilies require cold chain storage to maintain color. Forecasting becomes critical.

But he also points to advantages. “Western Rajasthan produces around 30% of cumin for the entire world. Once you solve that supply chain, whether you are solving for 100 tons or 10,000 tons, mostly the mechanism is similar.”

An interesting shift happened in how investors categorize Khetika. Early on, VCs compared the company against agri-tech players like Ninjacart and DeHaat. Now, comparisons are to food brands like ID Fresh and Slurrp Farm.

“We are not compared with agritech players because their revenue comes from what they sell to farmers. Our business comes from what we sell to consumers,” Prithwi explains.

The distinction matters for valuation and growth trajectory. Agri-tech platforms face marketplace economics. Food brands build pricing power through differentiation.

His advice to founders: “Focus and solve the consumer’s problem. Once you solve consumer problem, build the business in a profitable manner because ultimately it’s a business. Vanity metrics won’t do much now. If you are building real business, I don’t see funding as a challenge.”

Process as Product

In an era obsessed with capital efficiency and asset-light models, Prithwi chose to own the entire value chain. His bet: in food, you cannot outsource trust.

We started from demand side, understanding consumer problems. We realized to get particular quality, you can’t buy from somewhere in middle. You need to go to source locations. Our vision was to deliver food in its purest form from farm to consumer. Now we are doubling down on farmer sourcing network and building knowledge centers.

The timing aligns with macro shifts. FSSAI is tightening food safety regulations post-MDH scandal. PLI schemes incentivize domestic food processing. Quick commerce platforms need differentiated brands. India is positioning itself as a food export hub in a “China+1” world.

But perhaps the most interesting part of Prithwi’s story is what he didn’t do. He didn’t build an app to disrupt intermediaries. He didn’t create a marketplace. Instead, he bought stones. He taught farmers about pesticides. He built factories. He ground spices at 4°C.

₹247 crore in revenue, 50%+ growth, Series B closed. Not bad for a veterinarian who got obsessed with stones.

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