India’s kids’ food market is filling up with brands promising better nutrition without sacrificing taste. But turning that promise into a repeat purchase is harder
Kids want a bar of chocolate, but parents want a healthier snacking option. For years, this has been one of the toughest equations for nutrition-conscious parents, who often found themselves negotiating tantrums in the kids’ food aisle of every supermarket.
A new crop of Indian D2C brands believes it has found a way around that tug-of-war. Their proposition is simple: don’t ask children to eat differently but make the food they already love better.
One example is Little Joys. It is betting that adding protein to a ‘roti’ is easier than getting a child to try a new food. The health and wellness platform launched a protein mix to add into the dough and batter for rotis, dosas and pancakes.
That’s one example of how healthy snacking and kids-centric food is getting a revamp. Jaipur-based Gladful puts sprouted lentils and millets into familiar breakfast mixes, while The Whole Truth’s Next Gen range includes milk mixes, snack bars and protein blocks.
For the urban millennial parents these brands are targeting, paying a premium can be easier than finding the time to prepare everything from scratch. But the purchase still has to satisfy two people: the child who eats the product and the parent who pays for it.
Little Joys’ founder Revant Bhate told us, “The hard thing in building a kids brand is building for two customers. A 10-year-old wants great taste, while a parent wants proof that the product is good and effective. And the bar for winning both over keeps getting higher.”
Meanwhile, parents aren’t the only ones scrutinising what these brands are promising. In June, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) flagged 15 brands, including Storia, Two Brothers Organic Farms, PLAN B, The Health Factory, Troovy and Emami’s Healthy & Tasty, over allegedly misleading branding and claims. Expressions such as “healthy”, “organic”, “zero maida” and “vegan” came under scrutiny.
This leaves us with a question: can these brands convince parents that better ingredients and better formulations are worth paying for?
The market is crowded with both legacy and new-age brands offering products positioned as healthier options for children. But what are these brands bringing to the table?
According to Gladful cofounder Parul Sharma, brands are trying to balance nutrition, taste and trust with information on actual formulation, laboratory analysis and compliance with FSSAI requirements. Serving sizes and nutritional values should also be relevant to the age group being addressed.
She also pointed to the ICMR’s recommended dietary allowances for children aged seven to nine. The ICMR’s nutrient requirements framework distinguishes between average requirements, recommended allowances and upper limits.
Sharma also said finding the right balance is a challenge for many brands. For instance, reducing sugar or changing conventional ingredients can affect taste and texture. Similarly, using higher-quality or more recognisable ingredients can increase formulation and ingredient costs.
Talking about clean labels, Mansi Baranwal, the cofounder of Troovy cofounder, said most brands highlight healthier ingredients such as pulses, millets and jaggery on their labels, but often list “spices and condiments” at the end.
“These spices and condiments may contain silicon dioxide, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate and tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, alongside artificial colours and flavours, emulsifiers, firming agents and gelling agents. My concern is how far brands are willing to go in reworking these parts of the recipe to keep their ingredient promises,” she added.
Baranwal said leaving out these ingredients means the seasoning would not stick evenly, leading to repeated failed batches and lakhs spent on innovation. Troovy now spends approximately ₹10-12 Lakh a month on laboratory testing, covering raw materials and finished products.
Baranwal’s concern is that brands should not stop at asking whether an additive is allowed today. They should also keep looking at the evidence behind its use. At the same time, an unfamiliar ingredient name does not automatically mean it is unsafe.
A young brand needs suppliers willing to work with small orders, unfamiliar formulations, and repeated trials. Baranwal of Troovy said that combination can make manufacturers reluctant. The volumes may not justify the effort, and the innovation adds risk.
This also leaves founders doing work that a larger food company can spread across specialist teams. “In a startup a small team is managing everything -R&D, procurement, production, quality, manufacturer relationships. And they also have to handle testing and compliance with the same level of diligence as the giants,” she added.
Then comes the next- ingredient bill. Prices of better oils, protein ingredients, alternate sweeteners, and nuts are high. And have risen further in recent months. Most brands, so far, have absorbed some of that increase through lower gross margins rather than passing the entire cost on to consumers.
So where can the savings come from?
Sharma pointed to procurement, manufacturing scale, packaging, production yields and distribution. She argues that brands need to make the entire operation more efficient instead of simply cutting ingredients.
Shelf life is another part of the equation. It has to work not just at the manufacturing stage, but through distribution and the time a product spends in a household.
Sunitha Vishwanathan, partner at Kae Capital, believes brands concentrating only on D2C and quick commerce risk building on too narrow a base. Established food companies already have the retail reach that challengers are trying to build, and moving into those stores requires rethinking what each pack earns.
“The pack sizes, price points, and margin structures that work on Blinkit don’t automatically translate to a kirana shelf or a supermarket aisle.”
That means a recipe that works in production still needs a pack size and selling price that works wherever the parent buys it. Otherwise, wider distribution can bring more orders without resolving the margin problem.
Farmley’s 2026 snacking survey, which covered more than 6,000 respondents across cities and age groups, found that nearly 60% of the parents surveyed were willing to pay a premium for healthier snacks for their children. This is an encouraging signal, but willingness to pay is only the first step.
Vishwanathan believes that with so many brands claiming to offer healthier snacks, the real edge will come from specific, demonstrable nutritional benefits rather than another list of ingredients that a product does not contain.
She pointed to areas such as protein for active children, gut health and cognitive support as propositions companies are exploring. But these are still claims that need evidence.
For Sharma, the clearest commercial evidence comes from watching what households do after the trial. Are they buying again? How long does the next order take? Does the product still sell once the introductory offer ends? She also looks at revenue from returning customers, retention over time and whether families use the products across everyday eating occasions.
“Ultimately, the strongest signal is whether consumers stop thinking of the product as something they “try because it is healthier” and start buying it because it has become part of their regular household food routine,” Sharma added.
For now, these brands have found parents willing to listen. As they grow, the harder decisions will come when an ingredient gets costlier, or a retailer asks for a bigger margin. What they choose to protect then will tell us how much their promise is worth.
What are the biggest challenges in building a kids’ nutrition brand for children aged 6-14 in India, and what does it take to get the product, parental trust and repeat purchases right at an early stage?
We reached out to Astha Jain, the cofounder of kids’ ayurvedic wellness brand Ayuvya, to understand the playbook here. Here’s what she divulged:
Tailored Customer Experience: A new buyer and a returning one have completely different questions. New customers need education around how to use the product, what to expect and when they can realistically see results, while returning customers need continuity through dosage reminders and the next steps in their regimen. In Ayurveda, where results depend on consistent use over weeks, getting the first-timer journey right is critical to driving the second order.
Use Check-Ins To Prevent Silent Churn: Instead of reaching out only when it is time to sell again, Ayuvya uses structured check-ins after purchase. Day 7 helps identify usage mistakes before customers give up, while Day 14 checks for early signs of progress. This allows the brand to address issues during the usage journey and makes the eventual reorder part of an ongoing conversation rather than a cold sales pitch.
Rope In Doctors To Build Trust And Improve Outcomes: Ayuvya offers free consultations with its Ayurvedic doctors to help customers choose and use the right products. Jain believes personalised guidance improves adherence and outcomes while addressing a larger trust problem in the category, where customers have often encountered exaggerated or fake Ayurvedic claims. A conversation with a practitioner can build more trust than marketing communication alone, she added.
Source: Inc42
