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Founder@ Interview
Interview with Nirali Mankodi and Jagir Mankodi
“Take risks, but take calculated risks. Keep learning, growing and planning for your future. .” – Nirali Mankodi & Jagir Mankodi
Today we feature Nirali Mankodi & Jagir Mankodi, the founders at Superfoodio. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
Hi, we’re Nirali & Jag, a husband and wife team and the founders of Superfoodio.
Our mission with Superfoodio is to create plant-based treats for pleasure, people, and the planet. We create delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate with just five ingredients, not the 35 you’ll find in many famous brands.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
Our backgrounds are in Psychology and Business consulting. A few years ago we decided to press pause on our corporate London jobs and go travelling around South America.
We trekked through the Amazon jungle and Inca Trail in Peru. We spent time with local people, eating with their families and helped out on their farms. It was a life changing adventure that led us to a revelation, taking us back to the basics of food.
We started drafting a business plan on a 17 hour bus journey from Bolivia to Peru. And this is where the seed for Superfoodio was first planted.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
Superfoodio creates delicious treats to excite and delight taste buds all over the UK.
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We’re a challenger brand, championing the plant based movement. All of our treats are made using high quality, simple and natural ingredients that our bodies can recognise. No palm oil, artificial sweeteners, preservatives or refined sugars.
We’re based in Greater London and our products are available online and around independents around the UK.
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
We returned home from our South America travels, refreshed and incredibly motivated by the powerful idea of taking just a few of the earth’s most nutritious foods, and blending them unspoilt. We turned these into original recipes for a range of plant-based treats.
We experimented, in the kitchen of our flat. Obsessively. Every night for weeks and weeks. After many gooey, messy experiments, our late night efforts finally came good.
Months of continuous refinement followed, for example we found ways of introducing 18 grams of plant-based protein into our chocolate – yet kept to our original five ingredients.
We’ve had some incredible opportunities since we started to get our products out there in front of our customers. From launching into Selfridges as our first stockist to having Novak Djokovic try our products. Our main focus is to get our product out there and build on the customer feedback we receive to improve our products and grow the business.
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
It can be difficult to juggle everything as an entrepreneur especially when you are starting out. The biggest mistake is probably over-thinking things. You just have to get on with it and put the idea out there. Then you can build on your idea using feedback from your customers.
There’s no 1 set way of achieving success. Sometimes you are surrounded with similar businesses and feel that their way is the right way to grow your business. However, every business is different and you can find your own niche within a crowded market. Being authentic and having your unique voice is most powerful.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
We didn’t come from a business background or have friends and family who are entrepreneurs. One thing we have learnt along the way is to keep learning, which is what we still do to this date. The power of networking is so important as it allows you to learn from other people’s experiences and builds a community that you can surround yourself with.
Being an entrepreneur definitely requires high resilience. We feel like we’ve grown as people through our experiences.
A recent recipe video we made for the Summer –
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Xero is one tool that has made accounting really easy for us. We can maintain it ourselves and as and when data is required, pull these reports from our account.
We are also very active on Instagram, which allows us to share updates with our audience as well as share behind the scenes clips, recipes and new launch information. We also connect with a lot of other brands and businesses through Instagram.
LinkedIn is also another platform we are becoming more active on. We find it reaches a different audience and allows us as business owners to share our journey.
Tools such as Zoom have also become such an important part of the business since Covid 19 hit, as it allows us to continue working as a team remotely and connect with our clients and suppliers virtually.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
There’s no 1 set way of achieving success. Sometimes you are surrounded with similar businesses and feel that their way is the right way to grow your business. However, every business is different and you can find your own niche within a crowded market. Being authentic and having your unique voice is most powerful.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
Building a business that we truly believe in, that makes a positive impact on people’s lives, bringing them joy!
Over the last year we’ve grown our business online and reading the reviews about our Peanut Butter Chocolate bars is a great sense of achievement. We were also recently really proud to be in Amazon’s Top 100 Best Selling Chocolates list alongside brands such as Reese’s and Cadburys. A great achievement for a challenger brand like ours.
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
We’d love to take Superfoodio to a global level and make great tasting, plant based treats accessible to all.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
Take risks, but take calculated risks. Keep learning, growing and planning for your future.
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Superfoodio”
To learn more about Superfoodio Visit www.superfoodio.com
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