Forbidden Foods, packaged food startup has raised $1 million in its seed funding round from Marquee Angel Investors. The round was led by curated crowd-funding platform and early stage venture fund Globevestor, and Secocha Ventures. Other investors in the round include First Cheque Venture Capitalist, HyperTrack founder and chief executive Kashyap Deorah, and Quess Corp chief executive Vijay Sivaram, among others.
The startup has already launched its first product line that is directly in competition with established companies in the organized snacks space like PepsiCo, Parle and ITC. “We have assembled a cross-functional team to disrupt the packaged snacks business; we are pushing the envelope on innovation,” Anuj Krishnan, cofounder and CEO of Forbidden Foods stated. Krishnan was previously associated with craft beer brand BIRA 91.
The company said its first product line, BRB Popped Chips, is “smartphone-friendly”, low fat and gluten-free range, and has been launched in retail stores and e-commerce and grocery delivery platforms. Forbidden Foods has an experienced team of cofounders including Abhishek Agarwal who was formerly with Schlumberger, Apurva Anand from Coca-Cola and Hector Beverages (Paper Boat) and Tanmoy Mukherjee again from BIRA 91 and Reliance Retail.
According to a report by Mondelez International and The Harris Poll released late last year, over 75% of Indians said snacking is the future of food, against 53% globally. Indians are habitual snack consumers, with 77% snacking around the same time each day – starting right before breakfast and peaking at mid-day, the report said.
The lockdown imposed due to coronavirus has proved beneficial for packaged food companies as Indians started hoarding supplies as they stayed indoors. Nestle, Britannia, Amul and Parle reported positive growth curve post lockdown contrary to other industries who were struggling to survive during this time.