Abhishek Sinha cracked UPSC CSE not once but twice. He had a great career ahead of him after landing Indian Revenue Service in 2010. Yet, he left the IRS after 6 years quit the job, and set up a business. Now, he is a successful entrepreneur with the company valued in hundreds of crores.
Coming from Patna, Bihar, Mr. Sinha had decided to be a civil servant very early in life. He completed his Chemical Engineering from Pune University in 2004 and then started preparing for UPSC CSE. After graduation, all his efforts went into trying to achieve his target. In between, he cleared the exam for Section Officer (Audit) and CAPF Commandant before clearing UPSC CSE in 2008. First, he got into Indian Defence Accounts Service and then in 2010, he cleared the exam again and got Indian Revenue Service.
Everything was going good. He had achieved his professional goal and was getting a lot of opportunities to serve the country. Yet, there was something that was pulling him towards a different direction. Mr. Sinha has always been an animal lover. Feeding and rescuing animals are part of his daily routine. While he was satisfied with his job, he wanted very much to help animals and make this planet a better place for everyone. So, in 2016, he quit his job and started GoodDot, India’s leading plant-based meat and vegan food manufacturer.
In an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds, the civil servant turned entrepreneur shared his interesting journey into launching GoodDot.
A DILEMMA
There are a number of people who love animals but cannot stop themselves from eating meat. Mr. Sinha was one of them. He tried to quit meat but went back to it after a few days. “I am not the only one. Some can’t get over the taste while many are not able to find an alternative for the nutrition. So, even after trying multiple times, I wasn’t able to quit meat. This was creating a dilemma inside me. I used to ask myself questions like how can I talk about saving animals if I am using them to feed my stomach,” he said.
“When he was in college, he read about research on tissue culture based meat taking place in the Netherlands “This gave him hope and he kept eagerly waiting for the research paper. He also kept reading about all the researches happening in the world for generating plant based and tissue-based meat. He kept tracking the global research in the space as a consumer and was eager to see such products come to the Indian shores. However even after almost a decade no significant movement happened in India. Thus Abhishek decided to work towards bringing such products into India himself along with the support of his friends and close family.
STARTED RESEARCH
He created a team and started research in 2013. It was getting difficult for him to manage both his job and his passion for animals. So, in 2016, when the products of GoodDot started taking shape, he quit IRS.
About the challenges he faced, he said, “The technical part of it was more difficult. Like getting the science behind it, procuring the infrastructure and the equipment. Acquiring the texture of meat and making it affordable was also a challenge. People will consume this alternative only if it is cheap or, at least, equal to the price of meat. Besides that, the logistics to keep the frozen products were also poor. So, we had to overcome all those challenges.”
He got financial support from few HNIs (High Net-Worth Individuals) and USA-based venture capital fund named New Crop Capital. With their help, he was able to set up a factory in Udaipur in Rajasthan. There were personal and strategical reasons behind choosing this location. It is easy to procure raw materials like soyabean, yellow peas and gram flour, etc. And, the connectivity with Delhi and Mumbai is good.
GOOD DOT
GoodDot serves a wide variety of food, from Unmutton Keema, Unmutton Dhaba Curry, Eggless Bhurji to Biryani. All these are plant based, full of nutrition and protein, with the real taste and texture of meat. Explaining the reason behind the name ‘GoodDot’, Mr. Sinha said, ““In India, we get packaged products with either a red dot or a green dot. The red dot denotes non-veg product whereas the green dot denotes a vegetarian product. Thus the company was taking the green dot and making it a step higher by excluding any animal derived products. Thus the name GoodDot was born. GoodDot is good for humans, animals and the planet”.
He emphasized that many centuries back, we didn’t have so much food options like today. Earlier, it was a need to eat meat but today, there are many alternatives. “We don’t need to kill animals to be on our plate. Besides that, industrialization of meat and animal farming are not good for the planet. Many researches have proved that the carbon emission from these activities are very high. By quitting meat, one can actually contribute towards saving our planet,” he said.
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
GoodDot is not only a business for Mr. Sinha, it is his contribution towards saving animals and humans both. Every day, he and his team feed more than 150 street animals and work actively for their rescue.
His vision is to present GoodDot as a nutritious and healthy food, which is not only an alternative of meat, but can also be consumed by everybody. So far, he has been very successful in his endeavour. With strong distribution channels, Good Dot has reached more than 300 cities and towns and has sold products to more than 4-5 crore consumers.
“What’s incredible to note that apart from the bigger cities and metros, small cities like Samastipur in Bihar and Malkangiri in Orissa featured in the top 10 cities where maximum GoodDot products were sold. This is a world first where even rural parts of a country has been deeply penetrated by plant based meat alternatives”, said the former IRS officer.
“The efforts of team GoodDot has been recognised nationally and internationally.
London based forward fooding has ranked GoodDot as 33rd in the world in the Foodtech 500 list. Gooddot has been cited by The Economist as one of the three global best practices to achieve the UN SDGs. Gooddot was the only company in the world to be served at the Parliament of World Religion in its first ever Vegan Banquet in 125 years at Toronto, Canada. Gooddot was also conferred “The Changemaker Award” by Thought for Food, Malaysia.
Abhishek’s journey at Gooddot has definitely acted as an inspiration to many youngsters to follow their heart and make a difference in the world.
