What it Takes to Build a Farmer-First Clean Food Brand in India
Building trust in food, at its core, is about going back to the source and getting the fundamentals right.
With a focus on solving deep-rooted challenges in India’s food supply chain, Indian entrepreneur, Prithwi Singh brings together scientific understanding, on-ground experience, and structured execution to create systems that prioritize quality, transparency, and long-term value over short-term gains. As co-founder & CEO of new-age Indian staple food brand, Khetika, he believes in working in harmony with people as well as nature.
In conversation with CEO Insights India Magazine, Prithwi shares his perspectives on purpose-led innovation, farmer-centric sourcing, and the role of strong values in scaling a sustainable food business.
Through the conversation, he also reflects on leadership lessons, building empowered teams, and navigating growth while staying anchored to integrity and first-principles thinking.
To explore Prithwi’s insights on reshaping the food ecosystem and building for lasting impact, read the full article below.
How do you prioritize competing demands like scaling operations, innovation, and maintaining organizational values?
Being a clean food brand, there is no conflict between organizational values like trust, integrity etc and innovation as what we are promising to consumers is also integrity and trust. Hence innovation become more as enabler for driving these values.
When we started, we saw how fragmented and adulteration-prone the supply chain was. Instead of working around it, we chose to go to the source and build systems from the ground up. This meant working closely with farmers, ensuring single authentic sourcing, and building traceability so that quality is not just claimed but verifiable.
Some of our choices, like offering zero preservatives products or setting up internal testing systems to India’s 1st toxin-free spice powders, are not the easiest or most cost-effective decisions. But they are rooted in what we believe is right. Innovation, for us, is directed towards solving these structural problems, and scale is a result of staying consistent to that approach. Values are not a trade-off in growth, but the only way to sustain it.
How do you foster a team environment where accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning thrive, while ensuring everyone connects with Khetika’s vision for clean, healthy food?
We have learned that culture is not built through intent alone, but through everyday interactions and behaviors. At Khetika, we focus on creating an entrepreneurial environment where people are given ownership along with ability to take decisions. They should feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, feedback, and even disagreements openly.
It is equally important to actively listen and implement ideas where they make sense, because that builds trust and encourages ownership. At Khetika, we encourage people to develop the products of same quality for our consumers which they would like their own families to consume.
Interestingly, most people on the team have themselves moved to using our products—not out of obligation, but because they understand what goes into them and believe in what we are building. That sense of belief naturally strengthens accountability and collaboration.
Working closely with your farming roots, what unique problem-solving approaches or habits from agriculture influence your day-to-day decisions as a leader?
Agriculture has deeply influenced how I think about time, outcomes, and responsibility. It teaches patience, perseverance, and the importance of working in collaboration with people as well as with nature. You realize that quality is a result of consistent inputs and the right processes, not quick fixes.
This perspective has shaped how I approach building Khetika, where the focus is always on strengthening the underlying system rather than chasing immediate results. It has also influenced personal habits; I have stayed mindful about what I consume, avoiding highly processed foods over the years.
The belief that better outcomes come from working with nature led us to initiatives like SAATHI, where we work closely with farmers to improve soil health and enable cleaner food at the source.
From your corporate experience at BCG, Reliance Retail, and Star Bazaar, what frameworks or strategies have you adapted to navigate Khetika’s growth and operational challenges?
My corporate experience gave me a strong foundation in structured thinking and execution discipline. At BCG, the focus was on breaking down complex problems and prioritizing high-impact actions, while retail taught me the importance of attention to detail, consistency at scale and staying close to the consumer.
However, building Khetika required adapting these approaches to a much more unstructured environment. The food supply chain, especially at the farm level, does not always respond to standard frameworks. Over time, I have learned to combine analytical rigor with on-ground understanding and intuition. Frameworks provide direction, but context ultimately determines how they should be applied.
When market trends or consumer expectations shift rapidly, how do you maintain agility in decision-making while keeping your team focused, motivated, and aligned?
In a rapidly evolving market, agility is often misunderstood as reacting quickly to every change. For us, it is a core value, but one that is rooted in clarity rather than speed. We stay closely connected to ground realities—whether through direct consumer feedback or our ongoing engagement with farmers through SAATHI.
Many of our on-ground teams come with deep grassroots experience, which gives us a more nuanced understanding of real problems rather than just surface-level trends.
This allows us to respond thoughtfully without losing direction. Alignment comes from staying anchored to our principles, while transparent communication and ownership help teams navigate change with confidence.
LAST WORD: From your journey, what leadership lesson or guiding principle would you share with aspiring leaders striving to make meaningful impact?
There are three important lesson I would like to share – First is understanding the problem and gaining clarity. One of the most important lessons I have learned is that meaningful impact comes from solving fundamental problems using first principles, even when they are complex and time-consuming. This happens when you stay uncomfortably close to the problem to understand this better.
Second is staying committed to value system while solving these. It is often tempting to look for shortcuts, but lasting solution is built by staying committed to quality and integrity, even when it is harder in the short term. In our journey, this meant making choices that are not always the easiest—whether it is avoiding preservatives, investing in deeper quality checks, or ensuring sourcing is done the right way rather than the convenient way.
Third is about people. This requires finding the right people who believe in the vision and can carry it forward and empowering them with ability to take decision what is right for our vision and values. For me, leadership is about staying anchored to core values while remaining open to learning and thinking long-term.