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DryM Foods, a self-funded startup founded in 2017 by Aayushi Jain and Mranalini Jain, is looking to redefine ready-to-eat Indian meals through freeze-drying technology. View More
In 2017, driven by a personal crisis and a mother’s instinct to care, Aayushi Jain and Mranalini Jain set out to solve a problem many Indian families face when loved ones live abroad: the lack of simple, wholesome, home-style food. What began as an experiment in their kitchen has grown into DryM Foods , a fast-growing, self-funded startup offering freeze-dried Indian meals with no preservatives, no chemicals, and a shelf life of nearly a year. In this conversation with The Economic Times Digital, Aayushi Jain shares the story behind DryM, the nuances of freeze-drying, and how it has found a niche customer base. Edited excerpts. The Economic Times (ET): DryM Foods was started by two mothers in 2017. What was the personal trigger or moment that led you both to turn a home-cooked food philosophy into a scalable business? Aayushi Jain (AJ): There were two big reasons. First, while studying in Edinburgh, my sister had a health issue and could only eat simple food like khichdi or dal chawal and couldn’t find anything she could eat daily. Second, other mothers started asking us to scale because their kids were facing the same problem abroad. Eating out daily or surviving on bread and butter is tough for Indians; we miss our rajma chawal. And if we can give that without preservatives, then why not? ET: What challenges did you face early on as women entrepreneurs in the food-tech space—and how did you overcome them? AJ: In B2B, especially with distributors, I was often not taken seriously. They would question whether I could scale or manage it long term. But on the B2C side, since most of our customers are moms, being a woman actually helped. It was easier to explain our product and gain their trust. ET: What exactly is freeze-drying technology, and how is it different from the retort or dehydration methods that dominate India’s packaged food market? Live Events AJ: All three methods-retort, dehydration, and freeze drying , have been around for years. Retort gives you wet food, like a ready-made tomato puree, but it uses very high heat and pressure, which kills most nutrients. Dehydration removes water using heat, and freeze-drying removes water by freezing the food and drying it under vacuum. Retort loses the most nutrition, dehydration loses about 20%, and freeze-drying only loses 5–7%. Freeze-drying also keeps the food’s colour and shape better. ET: How do you ensure your meals retain their homemade taste and nutritional integrity after freeze-drying and long shelf life? AJ: We use desi ghee, which gives that home-style taste. We avoid strong spice mixes and focus on clean ingredients. Freeze drying helps the food stay fresh for 9–12 months because the moisture is reduced to just 1–1.5%. ET: Could you walk us through the journey of a dish—from recipe testing to freeze-drying to final packaging? AJ: Let’s take the example of kadai paneer. We test many recipes until we finalize one. Then we cook the dish and spread it on large stainless-steel trays. These trays go onto racks, with no human touch after this point. First, they go into a blast freezer at -35°C. Then the racks move into a vacuum chamber, where the food is slowly heated and dried over 12 hours. After that, we scrape the food off the trays and pack it into small portions, usually 50–90g. ET: You emphasize “no preservatives, no chemicals.” How do you ensure food safety, quality, and shelf stability without compromising on nutrition? AJ: The main reason is freeze-drying, which is a gentle process. We also keep strict control over temperatures, and only a few trusted team members manage the drying machines. We use natural repellents like red chilli for cleanliness. Only two people handle procurement to ensure quality. For example, when we buy paneer, we test every batch to make sure it's pure and safe. ET: Who is your core audience today—working professionals, students, elderly consumers? How has that evolved over time? AJ: Our main customers are students abroad, toddler moms, and travellers. We started with moms sending food to their kids using DHL. After COVID, more people wanted home food even during holidays. While traveling, we gave our toddler dal chawal and saw how easy it made our lives, that’s when we started our toddler menu, which has been a big hit. ET: A daily drying capacity of 1 ton is quite big. How did you scale manufacturing while keeping everything in-house and quality-controlled? AJ: We kept investing our profits back into the business and responded to growing demand. We also work with organic farms that give us extra produce, which we use for drying, reducing waste, and keeping things clean and fresh. ET: Do you plan to open up co-manufacturing or licensing in other regions as you grow? In a crowded ready-to-eat market, how do you position DryM Foods as different—from legacy players to newer D2C startups? AJ: Not right now. Food units need close supervision and very responsible staff. We do plan to go into retail through distributors, but co-manufacturing isn’t in our plans at the moment. Our freeze-drying technology and simple, homestyle taste set us apart. We are not trying to make the richest dal makhni full of cream; we focus on real, basic food like at home. If someone likes strong masalas and lots of oil, we tell them honestly that we might not be the right fit. Today, we ship globally. We offer free shipping to the US, UK, Dubai, and Canada on larger orders. We’re still looking for trusted partners to help us get on shelves in other countries. ET: What are your most popular dishes today—and why do you think they resonate? AJ: My favourites are lemon rice, pav bhaji, rabdi, and paan. But the most popular ones are dal chawal, rajma chawal, kadai paneer, khichdi, chole chawal, paan, dried cassata, jamun cubes, kheer, chutney, and theplas. These are all dishes we eat regularly, so when someone is away from home, they really crave this kind of food. ET: Are your products primarily sold online, through your own website or marketplaces? What’s your retail and distribution strategy? Have you raised external funding or plan to do so for expansion? AJ: We mostly sell through our website and WhatsApp. We tried Amazon and Blinkit, but they didn’t work for us. We ended up spending more to promote their platforms. Right now, we feel freeze-dried food is not yet ready for shelf sales in India. We’ll review again at the end of the year. No, we’re fully self-funded right now and don’t plan to raise money. We’re open to strategic partnerships with bigger players who can help us grow through their networks. ET: What were your revenues last fiscal and your targets for this year? AJ: It was 1.5 crore last year, and we target a revenue of 4 crore this year.