Advocate of healthy living

From homemaker to a successful entrepreneur Meena Jain, the founder of 'Mighty Millets', has come a long way. Meena informs that after her marriage she put on weight, so she inclined towards healthy living.

"I started preparing recipes for weight loss. I started sharing these recipes with my friends they really liked them, and they started calling me a dietician. And made realise that I can do this professionally.

So, I started searching for institutes that teach courses on nutrition, however, I realised that being a commerce graduate I was not eligible to enroll in these courses."

"One day one of my friends at the gym told me that she is doing a diploma course in nutrition and dietician at VLCC and anybody can join the course. I got intrigued by the idea and I immediately enrolled for this course."

Meena says that the course was very challenging as she had her education from Marathi medium institutes. "As the course was in English, I had to learn everything from scratch. I studied for a year and then I did an internship in the same institute. And later I worked in a few fitness clubs as well."

About starting 'Mighty Millets' she says, "My son, who is a CA by profession, wanted to venture in the food industry and so we thought why not we combine our talent and focus on nutritional food.

I used to make nutritional powders for the 80 per cent women clientele, who had bone issues. It was a great success and they found a lot of difference using that powder as it was healthy and then I also started making these powders for diabetes and cholesterol.

I also made chocolate bars with millets for skin and hair. So, we thought we would focus on specific health issues. I started making these bars with seeds and nuts, coconut and then I even started making granola's and so within few days we got an order from a corporate company and then we started 'Mighty Millets' in June 2018.

At that time, we did not have labour or equipment to complete the order, but somehow, we managed to make more than 400 boxes of granolas. And that was the first steppingstone for company.

Speaking about the challenges she faced when starting the company, she said, "I can say that starting this venture was pretty difficult. For one year I had sacrificed everything to reach here.

As I was interested in cooking the basic knowledge helped me and then people are usually scared about diet and so to develop the interest in my recipes was a task and to motivate people to continue the diet was even more challenging."

Meena says that her family was very supportive of her idea from day one. "My husband was supportive of the decision; however, he was sceptical about the admission into the course as he thought how I would learn it.

My children also helped me a lot by teaching me the things that I did not grasp, they taught me how to make a power point presentation, etc, and they are my main source of motivation. I have taught them when they were kids and now, they are teaching me (smiles).

What kind of diet do you suggest for working women? "I suggest that the food that is taken during the breaks should be healthy. Food like nuts, fruits, and millets are the right choice for good health."