Milk Mantra
Milk Mantra is a dairy foods company based in Odisha, India founded in August 2009 by former director at Tetley Srikumar Misra and cofounded by Rashima Misra and Lt Col Ashit Mahapatra, to solve the trust deficit between consumers and food in India arising out of opaque supply chains and adulterated food. First operational in 2012, it is India's first venture capital-backed agri-foods startup. It was set up to solve the milk scarcity problem in the state. Milk Mantra has been built as a purpose driven socially responsible business that seeks to rebalance capitalism by leveraging brand capital to create impact at scale. Milk Mantra and Srikumar Misra have been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, in case studies by Stanford Business School and Indian Institute of Ahmedabad and also extensively covered by leading academia and media. History Milk Mantra was founded in August 2009 by Srikumar Misra, a former executive with Tata Group, Rashima Misra and Lt Col Ashit Mahapatra. Its first series of investments were received from VC firms Eight Roads Adventures and Aavishkaar Venture Management Services and angel investors. The company took 18 months to complete its series funding and started its operations in early 2011 with the commissioning of a factory in Gop in Odisha. In April 2011, the company started the Ethical Milk Sourcing programme, “Happy Farmers = Happy Cows = Best Milk!” in two villages in Puri District. In June 2011, the company developed its 3-layer packaging technique called 'Tripak' which prevents the milk contents from light damage. In 2012, it launched its products in Bhubaneswar and Kolkata with services like direct-to-home milk delivery. In 2013, it launched a range of Easter India's first probiotic curd. In December 2014, it acquired Westernland Dairy, which extended Milk Mantra's reach to Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Milk Mantra comes with a distinct brand proposition, “No More Boiling” with an USP that lies in its packaging which promises improved shelf life of its dairy products. In 2013, Stanford Business School did a 3 part case study on Milk Mantra and Aavishkaar on raising VC funding in India. On June 21, 2016, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan visited the plant of Milk Mantra and met its management, employees and some women farmers to understand the business model of the startup which sources its chief product (milk) from over 70,000 farmers in the state, called the Ethical Milk Sourcing (EMS) programme. In 2016, Milk Mantra rolled out a functional ready-to-drink healthy milk beverage MooShake and was piloted in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. In 2018, on a state visit to Bhubaneswar for the 'Commonwealth Lunch’, the British High Commissioner to the Republic of India, Sir Dominic Asquith along with his wife and the Deputy High Commissioner Mr. Bruce Bucknell visited the Milk Mantra office. In June 2020, the startup became EBITDA positive with a turnover of in the financial year 2020–21. In 2021 the company launched its own D2C dairy & subscription app DailyMoo to directly connect with its consumers.