BakeryBiz, May-Jun, 2021

Vegan products made without fuel or fire are preserving the environment while helping women from the local community find jobs

Every time a parent brought in their child for a dental appointment, Dr Minal Kabra would hear them worry about sugar intake and their perennial hunt for foods made with sugar substitutes. It prompted her to experiment with a batch of refined sugar-free cookies. She tried this in a solar oven, a new and improved version of the yesteryear solar ‘peti’ called Sunwings that her IITian husband, Vivek, innovated in 2011.

In December 2019, she launched Kivu-Kingdom of Good Food, a sun-baked vegan cookies food tech start-up to create a healthy, alternative snacking option, with her business partner Vaibhav Dugar who heads sales. Kivu, a fusion of Japanese “Chi or Ki” and French “Vu”, means channelising your inner energy for greater good.

They are now available in 60 retail stores across 14 cities and have over 800 customers online. They currently have a manufacturing capacity of 30 kg per day.

Dr Minal Kabra

Using solar energy for baking prevents five gm of CO2 for every cookie that otherwise would have been emitted from traditional fuel-fired ovens, explains Kabra. They now produce cookies in five flavours, including chocolate-coconut, oats chocolate, rajgira coconut, cinnamon wheat and ginger lemon jowar made with jaggery and are preservative-free.