Selling Home-Made Natural Ghee With Nei Native, Nitya Ganapathy

Nitya Ganapathy is the founder of Nei Native, a direct-to-consumer company that sells homemade, handcrafted ghee created from a family recipe. The family business, which also sells filter coffee powder and thirattipal, a traditional Tamil confection, plans to expand this year.

Nitya’s experience had not prepared her in the least for a business venture like this. Nitya grew up in South Delhi in the 1980s and 1990s, where she was exposed to a wide range of cultures. She moved to Mumbai to seek a career in the media and entertainment sector after graduating with honors in psychology from Lady Shri Ram College for Women.

Nei Native was founded on a shoestring budget of Rs 5 lakh. They are generating a monthly revenue of Rs 6 lakh and selling roughly 20 jars per day after seven months of setting up Nei Native and two months of proof of concept. It presently serves over 2,000 consumers, with about 30% of them being repeat customers.

The farm at Vikramgad is in Palghar district, and local tribal employees employed by Nei Native conduct the labeling, sticking, packaging, upkeep, and workspace.

Her A2 cultured ghee with a great scent, granular texture, and nutty flavor is available from the company. The secret to her “nostalgia inducer” is a family recipe passed down through the generations. The process of boiling the milk, setting the curd, hand-churning the curd’s cream to butter, and ultimately converting the butter into ghee in the traditional technique was all done slowly.