While the pandemic proved disastrous for economies around the globe, certain industries, especially those involved in health and wellness, saw a boom with businesses involved in the same popping up during the pandemic itself. One of these businesses is Healthy & Hygiene, a homegrown brand serving a range of herbal and organic tea blends.
Launched by 30-year-old Harmeet Singh in October 2020, this Delhi-based brand provides herbal teas infused with spices and natural ingredients for the general well-being of Indians. The brand’s immunity tea with a mix of herbs and spices fight Covid and help in recovery. Now, with plans to expand its portfolio range to plant-based superfoods, as well as take the brand to the US and Canada by the end of the year, we speak to co-founder Singh about his passion project. Excerpts:
Could you please tell us the journey of your brand, from inception to execution?
We started the brand, bang in the middle of the global pandemic when most people were unsure about the future of any industry and were skeptical to invest in any new brand. After many months of trials and research, we launched our first wellness tea category. I won’t lie, we were also doubtful in the beginning but when you know your product has the potential to work well with the customers and you are offering what you are promising then you genuinely don’t mind taking that chance.
What made you enter the tea market, given that there are already such a huge number of producers?
India is one of the largest tea producers in the world, although over 70 per cent of its tea is consumed within India and I agree with this fact that there is huge competition in this business. My father has good knowledge about various herbs which he had gained from my grandfather and this is how we thought to use his knowledge and expertise to build Healthy & Hygiene. I believe that there are so many herbs and plants on Earth that are beneficial to human beings but their usage still has not been discovered. Also, the use of herbal medicinal products and supplements has increased tremendously over the past three decades with so many people worldwide relying on them for some part of primary healthcare. People are consciously adopting more organic and sustainable options these days, and that choice is also reflecting in the tea they are opting for.
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Where do you source your teas from?
How did you formulate the immunity tea? We try to source our teas and other herbs through tea farms, or the people that source straight from the farmers, as much as possible. Whatever ingredients we use, we first thoroughly check it ourselves for its authenticity. We also send the products to the laboratory for purity tests and after getting all the purity checks we only offer 100 per cent natural and the best quality products to our consumers. We still would like to formulate more teas and food products that can help people gain various vitamins, minerals essential for them, and in the process of doing that if we can help in curing someone that is what we want to achieve.
What about brand expansion plans?
As of now, Healthy & Hygiene has a range of 25 products and by the end of this year, we aim to include 50 more. We are in touch with farmers all over India to learn and know about their offerings in detail so that we can supply 100 per cent natural products straight from nature. We aim to expand more in the healthy green and herbal teas category along with plantbased superfoods, etc. By the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022, we have plans to take Healthy & Hygiene to the global shores and launch our entire product portfolio in America and Canada, to begin with.