Aarti Gill completed her engineering from IIT-Roorkee and worked with corporate entities and tech startups. Later, she went ahead to complete her MBA degree at INSEAD. At the age of 24, Aarti Gill quit her corporate job to follow her interest in preventive healthcare and start OZiva, an active nutrition brand. It offers a range of products that consist of botanical extracts, plant and whole food based nutrition.
What is the core focus of OZiva?
We have always been driven by one question- ‘how can we enable people to be healthier.’ What we apply and consume have a huge impact on our holistic wellness. We offer certified clean and plant-based nutrition and wellness products aimed to empower every individual to become healthier and better in every way. Our range of products are aimed at nourishing your body from the inside and out.
What prompted you to foray into the personal care and kid’s nutrition space?
Our focus is on providing holistic wellness solutions to our customers that can enable them to adopt a clean & healthier lifestyle. The personal care market might be cluttered but there is a gap when it comes to skin and hair health, which includes clean nutrition, and clean beauty products that are backed by botanical science & clinical testing. With the launch of OZiva Clean Beauty, we are able to provide holistic solutions to consumers for healthier skin and hair. We have 30+ clinical studies on our plant-derived ingredients that are used in our nutrition or beauty products.
Whereas, OZiva Kids aims to bridge this gap in kids’ nutrition. Due to the changing lifestyles and increased consumption of unhealthy foods, kids are lacking essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, protein and more. Most kids are also fussy eaters, which in turn leads to them facing nutrition deficiencies, and is cause of major concern amongst parents. We hope to build an ecosystem of clean and holistic wellness solutions for consumers of all age groups.
Which are your most selling products? Which are the most exclusive?
OZiva enjoys an unparalleled presence in the clean, plant based segment-offering products for holistic health spanning across categories like health, nutrition, beauty and more. We see growing consumer love for products like OZiva Organic Plant Protein (for everyday fitness), Plant-Based Collagen Builder (for radiant skin and anti-ageing) and Plant-Based Biotin (for stronger hair). These products are 100% clean and completely natural making them perfect for long term consumption.
The past 2 years of the pandemic has led to an increase in demand for immunity supplements that can help consumers become stronger, healthier and fight disease-causing pathogens. This has led to a surge in demand for our immunity boosting range.
Under our clean beauty range, we have seen a growing demand for products for Healthy Aging such as Youth Elixir Face Serum and our OZiva Kids Immunity Multi gummies has received a great response from both parents and kids.
Do your products cater only to women customers?
Our nutrition and clean beauty products are designed for both men and women. While we do have products in certain categories which are more personalized and built for a particular gender & the problem they are facing, most of our products can be used by both males & females.
Digitalization was the immediate effect of the pandemic, following the digital trajectory to setting-up your omnichannel presence. How has it been so far?
As a brand, you need to be where the consumers are. There was an accelerated adoption of the internet during the pandemic. However, as we move ahead in building OZiva to a 500cr+ brand, offline shall play a crucial role in this journey. We are expanding our channel mix and have seen very good traction from the retail stores in the cities where we are strong digitally as well.
What will be the market space (in terms of growth, size and opportunity) for a clean plant-based nutrition/nutraceutical industry in the next 5 years?
The conversations around nutrition have been constantly evolving, be it in India or globally. The Indian Dietary Supplement Market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 17.28%, to reach USD 10 bn by FY2026 from USD 4 bn in FY2020. The various segments within the supplement market includes vitamins & minerals, herbal supplements, protein etc. From which, the herbal segment contributes to almost 30% of the overall market and is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Herbal supplements are supplements derived from plant extracts. This also includes plant-based vitamins, minerals and plant protein. Clean labels on the other hand are still niche in India but more and more consumers are increasingly getting conscious about the foods they consume. They are adopting clean and holistic diets and this trend is here to stay. In the coming years we can expect the clean, plant based nutrition and wellness market to become more mainstream with higher adoption amongst consumers. This trend has already begun with FMCG giants also launching their line of plant-based products in India.
What are your upcoming launches?
Within clean nutrition, we have recently launched Herbals Drink Mix Category with Green Coffee, Ashwagandha. We have many more exciting launches coming up in the clean beauty category.
What are your growth plans?
Our focus in the upcoming months will be growing the new categories that we have recently launched – OZiva Clean Beauty and OZiva Kids. We are also expanding our offline footprint and that will be an ongoing focus area for the company.