College Friends To Foodpreneurs: How Three Youths Built A Rs 30,000 Startup Into A 5-City Desi Snack Brand

India.com

7 days ago

Jamshedpur: The idea began on a college street, sparked by nostalgia and hunger. Three students, Dhruv from Siliguri, Chetna from Asansol and Abhishek from Jamshedpur, met while studying in New Delhi and bonded over memories of home-cooked food. What started as friendly conversations soon turned into a full-blown entrepreneurial journey.
Today, the trio runs Punch Meal, a startup that sells handcrafted Indian pickles, snacks and laddoos rooted in age-old recipes. The business that began with just Rs 30,000 has grown into a company with manufacturing units across five cities and employment for more than 30 women.
The Taste of Home, Bottled and Sold
Coming from business families and a commerce background, the three noticed a common thread among students and professionals living away from home – the craving for their grandmother's pickle or a familiar local snack.
'We realised that every time someone travels away from their hometown, they carry homemade pickles or snacks. It is more than food. It is comfort. That is where the idea was born,' says Dhruv.
So, they decided to turn this emotional connection into a business.
The First Order Took 10 Days
With no major funding, the friends pooled together Rs 30,000 to set up Punch Meal. They started small – just a few batches of pickles and basic packaging. 'It was not smooth. It took 10 days to get our first order. But when it came, it gave us the push to keep going,' remembers Chetna.
Fast forward to today, Punch Meal handles over 100 orders a day, catering to customers across India.
Each founder brings a different strength to the table. Dhruv oversees production and marketing, Chetna manages online sales and logistics and Abhishek looks after overall operations.
But the impact of their startup goes beyond profit. Their five units across various cities have become a source of employment for over 30 women, many of whom had never worked outside their homes before.
A Modern Twist to Traditional Flavours
Punch Meal currently offers 16 varieties of pickles, including sweet-and-sour mango, Banarasi red berry, garlic, jackfruit and wild berries like lasoda and bair. Among these, the lemon and khair varieties have emerged as customer favorites.
They have also experimented with snacks to suit younger audiences such as hazelnut-coffee and orange-almond dry fruit laddoos, along with millet-based namkeen and bhujia that cater to the growing demand for healthy options.
What began as a kitchen experiment among friends has grown into a full-fledged desi brand with a loyal customer base. As orders rise and their team expands, the founders say they are now exploring tie-ups with organic farmers and looking at exports in the future.
And to think – it all began with a craving for home.