True Elements: India's First Clean Label Breakfast, Snacks Brand With 100% Transparency

At a time when people have started to look for healthier options when it comes to food, an organic brand called 'True Elements' providing complete organic food in a sustainable way is making its way to the market.

True Elements is amongst India's first Clean Label nashta (breakfast and snacks) brands. It is currently present across 13 categories, across 65 products ranging from Oats, Granola, Muesli, Flakes, Snacks, Seed mixes, amongst others.

Moreover, it has also achieved the feat of being a digital-first food brand with over 75% revenue generated via online channels.

"Our brand believes in being True and our position of being True does not mean 99.9% True but being 100% True and Transparent to our customers. We are a philosophy-first brand anchored on providing 'Food that DOES NOT lie to you'", Puru Gupta, co-founder of the brand told The Logical Indian.

Founded in 2015, Gupta claims, he spent every waking hour of the last six years, thinking about a brand that could define what 'clean and honest' food could be like. By providing food that ranges from "Nashta" to "Tiffin" (depending on which part of the world you are in), it aims to be India's Most Trusted and Loved Breakfast and Snacks brand.

Provides Evidence For All Claims It Makes

True Elements promises 100% whole grains, 0% added sugar, 0% chemicals, 0% preservatives in their products and ensure never to compromise on that factor. What further makes it unique is the core ideology of being 100% transparent with its consumers by providing evidence for all the claims it makes.

Consumers can access the minutest details of the products they consume, batch-by-batch on the official website. Additionally, it promises not to use any jargon on the ingredient lists or packaging, so the consumers are never misguided. Recognising the unique preferences of customers, the brand now provides the option to personalise their Muesli and Snacks online.

"Today, there exists a large trust void between consumers and brands, largely driven by convenient and false promises. The whole idea of launching True Elements was to help improve eating habits and avoid health disruptions caused by the unknown unhealthy and contaminated food. We work towards this by driving 100% transparency and crystal-clear communication with our customers, around everything that has gone into the products they consume, from the farm till it reaches their bowl," Gupta said.

Four Key Tenets

True Elements is anchored on four key tenets— True Nutrition, True Transparency, True Sustainability, and made by True People.

• True Nutrition i.e being True to our Food:
  

The team believes in minimum tinkering to be able to provide maximum ingredient goodness.

Also, in their world – chemicals, added sugar and preservatives do not exist

• True Transparency i.e being True to our Word:
  

True Elements team provides evidence for everything they claim. Every product across the entire range can be traced back to its source with the minutest details on the website. Additionally, no information is hidden/skipped/jargonised on the labels. What is written on the outside is what is inside.

• True Sustainability i.e being True to our Planet:
  

They claim to be a conscious start-up that genuinely cares for the planet. Consumers have the option to choose plastic-free packaging or recycle their old plastic packaging. The team collects these plastic packets, converts them to Biofuel and then distributes it to rural households for cooking purposes

• Made by True People i.e being True to our people:

The products are largely developed and managed by Millennials and produced by Moms. Most importantly, what they make is what the team members and their families consume. And all the members are the strongest believers in what they make.

The team has developed a technology internally and provide customers with open access. Customers can scan the QR code behind the packet and get batch-wise reports related to every product across the entire journey- right from Quality Reports to the ingredients list. The brand has got recognition for this initiative and was awarded in the '5 Top Clean Label Startups Impacting The Food Industry'.

"We started our journey 6 years ago with a simple motto of providing clean food. While we have miles to go, we are happy with the progress made so far," Gupta added.

Inclination Towards Healthy Food

True Elements's team comprises of 270 passionate individuals. The brand is closing in on 100Cr ARR and turned EBITA positive last year. From a demand perspective, prior to the pandemic, the brand saw muted inclination towards healthy food which led to slower adoption.

"Consumers today not only care for their own health but also for the environment and society. Specifically, on the marketing front, we aim to strongly build on the two pillars of awareness and credibility. For awareness, we are investing in building brand equity and salience in addition to pureplay performance marketing. We are present across all leading e-commerce platforms and invest aggressively across asset types to keep fuelling the demand generation engine," Gupta explains.

"We drive credibility via our strong influencer base, word-of-mouth led by our customers and experts in the space of food, nutrition, wellness, and fitness. Providing clean food enables us to reach out to the customers in a meaningful way via crafted assets. Our target audience is the 25-40-year-olds, who are health aware and are looking for cleaner food options. Further, we look at them in three distinct cohorts i.e fitness enthusiasts, casual health seekers, and homemakers," he added.

Gupta believes that the brand's future looks exciting with respect to growth in the 8 am-11 am-5 pm consumption buckets of breakfast and snacks. The brand is chasing an ARR of 300 Cr in the next 15 months and have robust plans to achieve this. It also plans to launch 30 new products in the next six months fuelled by product innovation and customer insights, intensifying the marketing efforts and building firmly on the pillars of awareness and credibility.

"We are looking to scale our offline reach and have plans of entering 25,000 outlets in the next few months. While we are available in international markets like Dubai, Nepal, Mauritius, Maldives, and USA, we plan to deepen our presence in the SAARC cluster of countries in the next few quarters," Gupta said.

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