Mom blogger Jyoti Srivastava quit an engineering career to build a millet-based baby food brand

A report, published by Ashoka University, reveals that 73 per cent of Indian women let go off their jobs after they have their first baby. Mom blogger Jyoti Srivastava, who is an engineer by profession, faced the same predicament after the birth of her son in 2019.

She used to design rockets for the Indian Army before she took a maternity break. After delivering her son, Srivastava wanted to restart her career, only to realise that she was overworked and underpaid in her previous job, that it wouldn’t allow her to spend time with her son. It was then that Srivastava took the brave step of switching fields. She did her IYCF (Infant and Young Child Feeding) from Unicef and a certification course on child and maternal nutrition, and started her Instagram page. She now runs a millet-based baby foods business by the name of Little Cherry Foods.

Jyoti Srivastava: “I lost hope and felt my professional life was over”

When she looks back at her journey to entrepreneurship, Jyoti Srivastava calls it nothing short of a miracle. An M.Tech in Chemical Engineering, she was aware of the basics of food processing technology. And and her experience of handling huge explosive manufacturing plants helped in designing the process and SOPs for her food company.

“I took a certification in Infant and Young Child Feeding from Unicef. This certification helped me in understanding the roles of various micro and macro nutrients, minerals and vitamins in the growth and development of babies,” she says, adding, “I did my own study and research to understand all the millets. I also read various renowned texts in Ayurveda to understand the roles of various herbs in the development of babies. The product formulations were created by keeping the nutrition needs and taste in mind. I used to cook millets 3 times every day to create recipes,” shares the 33-year-old, who is popular on Instagram by her moniker ‘littlecherrymom’.

However, this journey has been far from easy. “There were challenges. There was a very difficult phase which was full of despair. I wanted to restart my career when my son was growing up. But there were no job opportunities in the city (Meerut) for my experience. There was a time when I lost all hope and felt that my professional life is over,” she says.

Jyoti Srivastava on starting her company: Friends, relatives used to make jokes about blogging on social media

Studying millets for her son’s nutritional requirements gave her hope and a way forward. After getting certified by Unicef, she started her Instagram page with an intention to spread awareness amongst other new moms about millets and their health benefits for babies. She started to post information about healthy baby food options on her social media page, and gained followers. “That was the time when some of my friends and relatives used to make jokes about blogging on social media as a career. They used to say that I ruined my professional life by quitting the job. I had no idea where the money will come from to start the new company. But fortunately, me and my husband were able to overcome the challenge of lack of resources,” she says.

Getting the right funds to start her business was the toughest, she says. “I started conducting online workshops to raise the initial amount. Then we were able to secure a startup loan from a government bank. Mothers from all over the country started connecting with my posts and my page became popular. We had a community of 50,000+ mothers when we launched our first batch of products. I am thankful to all the fellow mothers who trusted me when we started,” she tells us.

Jyoti Srivastava on spreading awareness about millets: To teach is to learn again

One of the mail reasons to start a millet-based food brand was because Srivastava couldn’t find reliable and healthy food options for her son. “The reason for targeting baby food segment was the lack of options that I noticed for my kid. The current baby food sold over the counter is not all healthy. It is full of sugar and contains highly processed chemicals,” she says.

Today, besides running a successful company, Jyoti, who is now a mother of two, also takes workshops, and helps guide mothers who are looking for nutritious and healthy baby food options. “I take workshops on millets for babies, how to reverse picky eating behaviour and how to start solids journey. These are the challenges which lot of new mothers face today. There is very little reliable guidance for them. Especially for working women in a nuclear family setup,” she says.