How this entrepreneur scaled from selling Ayurvedic products door-to-door to making Rs 12 Cr annual turnover

Ayurveda has become the new buzzword as the world got impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. After the first COVID-19 case hit India in January 2020, the country’s citizens rushed for the alternatives to boost their immunity, with Ayurvedic products their prime choice. 

Many Ayurvedic companies reported double growth figures in demand and revenue. Shrawan Daga, Founder of Krishna Ayurved, told SMBStory that the monthly revenue of their brand was Rs 1 crore before the lockdown, but after April 2020, the demand for its products grew and the monthly turnover doubled to Rs 2 crore per month. 

Krishna Ayurved is a Jodhpur-based Ayurvedic brand that manufactures Ayurvedic juices, medicines, churna, and herbal beauty products among other 100 SKUs. 

In an interaction with SMBStory, 36-year-old Shrawan narrates his entrepreneurial journey of building Krishna Ayurved from scratch to now becoming a Rs 12 crore annual turnover brand. The brand is eyeing Rs 30 crore turnover in FY 2021-22. 

Humble beginnings

Shrawan hails from a family business that is into iron and steel processing. Like in any other parental organisation, Shrawan’s father wanted him to join the family business. But Shrawan wanted to do something outside the metal industry. 

He says that the Ayurveda industry saw a boom in the mid- 2000s. Right after Baba Ramdev brought forward long lost traditional Yoga practices and Ayurveda in the form of Patanjali in 2006, after heavily marketing it in different media forums, the exposure and popularity of Ayurveda increased. 

“That was the right time to bring to the fore our traditional Ayurveda practices. To my surprise, I saw that aloe vera — which is very common in Rajasthan and is consumed as a juice and prepared as food — was exported from the US in the form of juice as an alternative for good health. I wondered why we weren’t doing something like this,” Shwaran said.

The US used to import the aloe vera plant from Rajasthan and send finished products to India. This was an eye-opener for me. Thus, I decided to dive into the industry and bring the benefits of Ayurveda to Indian consumers. 

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At the age of 23 in 2007, Shrawan launched Krishna Ayurved out of his personal savings and started by manufacturing Aloe Vera juice in a batch of 50 bottles, followed by Amla juice. 

But how did he make a presence in the market despite having no funds?

The beginnings were a bit of a struggle for Shrawan. He started out by selling his products door-to-door and through exhibitions, gradually making people aware of the benefits of Ayurveda and his products. 

Today, Krishna Ayurved manufactures for some of the leading Indian Ayurvedic brands besides having a strong pan India presence. Krishna Ayurved is available at Iskcon temples across India, and is also present on ecommerce sites such as Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, and more. 

Making a difference

Speaking about the manufacturing process, Shrawan says the brand locally procures most of the raw materials like aloe vera, amla, etc, thereby saving time as well as the nutritional value. 

“Aloe vera pulp is processed within four hours from harvesting to maintain the freshness of aloe vera juice. We also use a cold-press process to maintain full nutritional value. Amla fruit is processed within eight hours of harvesting and is cold-pressed too,” Shrawan explains.  

All the products under Krishna Ayurved are made from wild or cultivated raw herbs. Shrawan says that they do not use extracts in the manufacturing process to maintain the quality, as 90 percent extracts are made using methanol or ethanol extraction process, which is not good for the health. 

Recently, Shrawan also set up Krishna Ayurved Medical Centre in Jodhpur which provides wellness facilities through Ayurvedic doctors.

Challenges and the way ahead

The market size of the Ayurvedic industry has expanded to approximately Rs 1,000 crore and has been witnessing a rapid growth after COVID-19. Shrawan tells SMBStory that the major challenges the company faces is in sourcing the right quality raw materials. 

In the near future, Shrawan says the brand plans to launch more SKUs, bringing more variants of juices and classical (shastrokt) ayurvedic medicines like durva swaras, chavyanprash, swarnaprashan, and more.