Interview with founder Unni Nambiar.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: After a brush with a potentially fatal disease, Unni Nambiar decided his body deserved better than the heavily processed diet he had become accustomed to. Inspired, he soon became an ardent organic food loyalist who only settled for the very best, all-natural products. A resident of the Washington D.C.-metro area, Nambiar soon realized that there were weren’t many options available to him in the form of Indian organic products, so he duly took matters into his own hands.
The company he founded, Fyve Elements, has grown to cover 45 states and now registers nearly triple the sales figures it started with two years ago.
In an interview with The American Bazaar Nambiar delved into the world of organic food production and spoke about his company’s role in the future of the business. Excerpts from the interview:
Firstly, could tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you from; where were you born, raised, go to school?
I’m originally from Kerala, but I was born and brought up in a place called Ooty, which is in southern India. It’s a very famous hill station. That’s where I did my schooling, and after that I did my engineering at Mangalore University – I did mechanical engineering. After that I worked for a couple of years in Bangalore.
What gave you the idea to begin importing and distributing Indian products?
I have actually been in import and distribution for — close to 13 or 14 years now. In 2009 I was diagnosed with a kind of cancer called Lymphoma. From that point I was trying to figure out what the problem was and why it was happening. Of course, the doctor said, there was no reason. That’s what everybody said: they couldn’t pinpoint anything. But essentially, everybody agrees, our exposure does make a difference. Exposure meaning the food that we eat, the water that we drink, or the air that we breathe. These are the only three things that you’re exposed to. Some of these things, like air, we don’t control. But food and water — I figured out I could control, so I started doing more research into that and I figured out that the food chain is not as great as what I thought it to be. I did see that there are a lot of issues in the food chain. That’s when I started slowly moving into organic food.
I switched to organic in 2010 — I had just recovered from my illness and since then I’ve been having organic food. For a couple of years I used to go to the American stores that are available but I couldn’t find the Indian organics. I didn’t think about it too much until I met up with “24 Mantra,” the largest organic food company in India. That was about twelve years ago. They were doing research into the U.S. market but they couldn’t find anybody who was sold on the idea of [Indian] organics. I was referred to them and that point, after we had a discussion, they figured out that I was very passionate about organics — I was already very into [them]. But I was waiting for an opportunity where I could actually make my passion my work — there’s nothing like being able to do both. I wanted to make a difference for the community, and after going through what I went through, I figured that was something we could do. It was probably a second chance or a second calling, I would say, for me.
The founder of 24 Mantra’s parent company, Sresta Natural Bioproducts — which is based in Hyderabad — is Rajashekar Reddy Seelam. He’s also had some similar experiences — his father passed away from cancer. At one of his previous employments he worked with farmers. He basically saw what the farmers were going through and he also saw higher incidents of cancer, so he got interested in this area and he was also really passionate about it, so he launched his organic food company. I guess when we met we struck a chord immediately. We had a common vision and common life-changing experiences which were eye-opening for us.
That’s how we launched Fyve Elements, which was on January 1st, 2013. We launched in the Baltimore, Maryland area; we started bringing the products in then we started distributing to various stores. By the end of the year we were doing reasonably well and we were encouraged by what we did. We decided to open up a branch in Chicago, so again on January 1st, in 2014, we opened up a branch in Chicago, so now we have two branches.
At the Jessup, Maryland location we’re covering the East Coast, and from Chicago we’re covering Illinois markets and about 12 other states in the Midwest. Chicago is strategically suited for distribution. We have some distributors that we work in certain markets, so we have a person in Boston, one in New Jersey, and one in Atlanta.
Are all of your products organic?
Not all are organic, but I would say about 35 percent of our products are organic. It’s difficult to sustain a purely organic food company so we have to carry other products as well. We have to manage our operating costs, which is why we do both. Our focus is on organic, though. In the long term we’re going to try to increase that percentage more and more. If we could do 50 percent organic we’d be happy.
Which geographical market is the most lucrative for Fyve Elements?
That’s a good question, actually! I would say we’re doing pretty well in the New Jersey market, but the market in Maryland is starting to pick up as well, so we’re pretty well spread out, basically.
The western palette is diversifying and seeking out more exotic tastes. Do you also distribute to outlets that wouldn’t be considered “niche” retailers?
We are now in MOM’s Organic Market, which is a small mainstream store. We entered into an agreement with them about a year ago. One of the issues with organics is supply. What happens is that it takes about close to five years to convert from conventional farming to organic farming. Across the world — unless you’re going into virgin land — the cultivated land is depleted. Between pesticides and fertilizer they’ve pumped so much stuff into that to get the soil back to its original form it takes about five years. Our parent company in India, Sresta Natural Bioproducts, works with farmers and helps them start from scratch. They go in and teach them how to cultivate organic farms and then convert their conventional farms into organic ones. Since our supply base is very limited, we can’t scale up too rapidly. Today, if I were to go to Wal-Mart and they were to give me a big order, I wouldn’t be able to execute it since we don’t have that kind of supply yet, which is why [expansion] has to happen in stages and has to be done both methodically and deliberately.
Our company has been around for two years and we’re starting to see some great results. Every year [Sresta] is adding more and more farmers and supply is increasing. We think we’re almost there, so we’re actually starting to put some feelers out there into the mainstream market. Hopefully by next year we should be able to take our products to a wider audience.
Do you cater to any demographics other than South Asian?
We primarily focus on the South Asian market, but there are some products that cross over — basmati rice and turmeric powder especially. Turmeric powder is now a mainstream product; people know what the health benefits are and there’s starting to be more concern about [health] in the mainstream also. That’s where we see some potential to get our products into the mainstream market. We’ve moved mango and guava juice into a few Hispanic markets and are getting some good responses from that.
What sort of network does 24 Mantra have in place abroad in order to scout products for Fyve Elements to sell in the U.S.?
24 Mantra has a huge team in India. They have their own factory and their own people working with farmers to source the products. And they have their own product development team there. They’re constantly innovating and coming up with new products. Primarily they started with pure, individual ingredients such as rice and spices, but they’ve started getting into processing with products like cereals, cookies, juice, sauces, honey, and a few other products.
When we started we started with around 20 to 25 products. Today, we’re selling over 100 products in the U.S. In India, they have over 200 products, but we don’t bring products over until they’ve been properly tested on Indian markets first.
You touched on this a bit already; what’s in store for Fyve Elements in the future?
I would say we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg right now. We’re still in the early stages having only been around for two years, but we’re already in 45 states in the U.S. We are in about 450 stores and outlets so we still have a lot of ground to cover — several thousand more stores. In addition there’s the mainstream market that we haven’t even touched, so I think over the next four to five years we’re going to see some explosive growth, actually. After just one year we doubled our warehouse facilities in Jessup — we started with a 9,000 square foot warehouse, and now we have a 20,000 square foot space. We also have a 16,000 square foot warehouse in Chicago. So you can see that our storage and distribution ability has changed rapidly. We started as a company of three people and now after two years we’ve grown to about 20 people. The growth is phenomenal for us right now. We think the next two to three years are crucial. Down the line, we even see Wal-Mart, Costco, and places like that as our customers. We’re certainly going to target them.
1 Comment
Make the products ridiculously expensive and then expect Walmart shopper to buy that. Either the quality would be compromised or the profitability. Again, by selling organic branded food in the market still at higher prices only attracts people who can spend average $700 on grocery every week., and it only benefits the corporations. I don’t know what the person has learned and wanted to bring a change about. Organic is good but the whole thing just feels like a scam to loot people.