WHY ID FRESH NEEDS A PINCH OF YEAST

The idli-dosa batter maker is looking to rise beyond its flagship product

- Samiksha Goel

Swapna Suman, a textile business owner, relies on iD Fresh Food's idli batter on days when she prefers to skip the labor-intensive and time-consuming process of grinding rice and lentils at home. Swapna, who started using the batter about three years ago, says it's now a staple in her kitchen.

"While there's nothing like homemade batter, iD Fresh is the only one that comes close to it. The quality is consistent, and the quantity is just right-enough for two meals for two people," she said.

Living in central Bengaluru, Swapna makes a trip to her neighbourhood department store to pick up the batter about once a month. But beyond the company's paneer, she hasn't explored the rest of the product range, which includes coffee decoction, parathas and chutneys.

In the crowded and fiercely competitive world of consumer food brands, iD Fresh has become a household name with its blend of innovation and nostalgia. Today, many people associate dosa batter with the company's distinctive green and yellow packaging. But, like Swapna, they haven't really explored the company's other products.

Two decades after it was set up, the company still derives the majority of its revenue from idli-dosa batter despite its strong brand recognition. Relying on that one product has hampered iD Fresh's efforts to scale up, something the founders acknowledge.

"Batter will be a ₹500-crore business for us (it is currently at about 300 crore), and parathas will be a ₹300 crore category for us before we go for an IPO in 2027. But I can't depend on just two products. I need to have two-three more such products for us to scale the business," P.C. Musthafa, co-founder and global chief executive officer, iD Fresh Foods, told Mint in a conversation at the company's office in Bengaluru.