[100 Emerging Women Leaders] Divya Arora Musaddi’s Heka Bites offers snacks made from traditional superfoods

Just before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Divya Arora Musaddi moved to Malda, her husband’s hometown in West Bengal, as he quit his corporate job and joined the family business. 

Both of them had met at IMT Ghaziabad while they were pursuing an MBA and got married in 2019. Musaddi was working with Deloitte at that time.

This was the first time that Musaddi, who was born and raised in Delhi, found herself in a small town. 

“It was a complete transition. I had applied to work from home for a few months, and the plan was to move to Kolkata or Delhi and my husband would travel to Malda often,” she says. 

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Musaddi knew they had to be in Malda for a longer time. She continued working from home but, in early 2020, the itch to do something on her own got the better of her, and she quit her job to start Heka Bites, a snack brand, in December 2021.

Better snacking options

With little opportunity to socialise, Musaddi had begun travelling to nearby towns to understand more about agricultural practices and crop production. She understood the practices and found them intriguing. 

“Malda is located near India’s makhana-producing belt, where 80% of the country’s makhana (fox nuts) is grown. I felt it was a great opportunity to tap into something that was happening close to home."

“Also at that point in time, people were becoming conscious about their eating choices, and this seemed a good sector to explore,” she explains.

Musaddi began facing health issues, such as high cholesterol and blood pressure, at a young age, when she was in Class X. Since then, she had been conscious of what she consumed. However, when the pandemic happened, her old fears returned and she started looking for healthier alternatives made from traditional superfoods. 

“I realised that while there were many brands coming up in the healthy snack category, they didn’t have a big pan-India presence. I travelled through different regions to find out what type of products people prefer. For example, jowar, makhana and others were age-old crops rooted to cultures, and we were forgetting them,” she says. 

Initially, Musaddi worked on eight seasonings and organised sample sessions in different parts of the country, partnering with various distributors, encouraging them to send samples to retailers.

She then narrowed down the flavours to three seasonings: Indian chaat, a mixture of chaat masala, pudina and other ingredients; Majestic Masala, a masala seasoning on jowar puff; and Cheesy Salsa, a blend of tomato and cheese. 

“We are not telling you to stop eating tasty food or what you love. I am just taking a seasoning you love, changing the flavour or the base from a potato or a corn to jowar (sorghum), makhana, chickpea and quinoa. I am changing the technique from frying to roasting. I am keeping it very simple and easy,” she clarifies. 

The snacks have less than 100 calories per serving.

The team at Heka Bites is also researching ragi (a millet) as an option but Musaddi admits it’s difficult to zero in on the right kind of seasoning to go with the grain. 

An all-women team runs the show

Currently, Heka Bites offers 20 SKUs that includes snacks, trail mixes, and nut mixes. There are also raw and unprocessed seeds and nuts like pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, and makhana. The products are priced between Rs 30 and Rs 500.

Interestingly, the venture started with three women employees and has now grown to an all-women team of 35, employed through a chain of referrals.

Heka Bites’ products were first launched on Amazon and Flipkart. In a year, they began to line the shelves of offline stores such as Spencer’s and Nature’s Basket. 

However, Musaddi soon realised that it was too early and expensive for Heka Bites to feature in physical stores and quickly changed the strategy to focus on online business and quick commerce. 

“Quick commerce has really worked well for us with Zepto and Instamart. In three years, we have seen a 10x growth and closed a net revenue of Rs 3 crore in the last fiscal year,” she says. 

Heka Bites uses a mix of performance marketing and awareness campaigns to popularise the brand to its target audience, which comprises mainly young working professionals and women looking for healthier snacking alternatives for their children.

“It has always been a challenge to create a good balance between the amount to be spent on marketing and staying profitable. Now it’s also time to make people aware of our products. So awareness creation is the current challenge that we are facing,” she admits.

Heka Bites is in talks with quick commerce companies to enter Tier II and III markets. Eventually it wants to be present in physical stores. It also plans to introduce three new products every six months.

As someone who has followed her desire, Musaddi believes women should always chase their dreams, no matter the diverse challenges in their path.

“I am very grateful to have strong women supporting me, and I think it’s very important to create an ecosystem where women help each grow,” she says.