Interview with Saranya Rajendran - Founder of Thinai Organics

Saranya Rajendran is the founder of Thinai organics which sell a lot of healthy organic products. Thinai organics has a wide range of products such as millet noodles, coffee and cocoa soap, country sugar, porridge mix, cold pressed coconut oil, aloe vera gel, bajji bonda mix, sweets with natural sweeteners, snacks without maida, and many more. Saranya has won many awards such as SuyaSakthi Homepreneur Award, Home Icon 2021 Award, and Synergy Singapenne Award 2022. Thinai Organics export their products to more than 20 countries. Let us hear from Saranya about how she started and is successfully running Thinai Organics now.

Saranya Rajendran 

You have worked for more than 10 years as a software engineer. What prompted you to start Thinai Organics?

My father was a porter and my mom worked in an export company. I came school first in 12^th std. I thought of taking up the arts stream but got a full sponsorship to complete engineering. During a recruitment drive, nearly 42,000 attended the interview at HCL. I was one among the 500 people selected for the job. I worked in software to mainly support my family.

I got married in 2013 and had my first kid Sahana in 2014. My second child Sadhana was born in 2016. She was born at 25 weeks in the 6^th month and was a micro preemie. As a mother, I wanted to give healthy food to my kids. So, I started inspecting all the food labels. I found that there were a lot of unnecessary ingredients in the food products. There were chemicals and pesticides. I started reading a lot about healthy lifestyles. The father of my friend was an iyarkai vivasayi or natural farmer. So, I sourced country sugar and millets from him. My friends also started requesting these organic products. So, in 2018 I started Thinai Organics in one room of a 2 BHK with 5 to 6 organic products. I felt that unhealthy food will affect the next generation and Covid-19 brought an awakening. So, at the end of 2020, I quit my software job and opened our first Thinai Organics shop in Madipakkam in January 2021. We registered it as Sana Thinai Organics – Sana being the first and end letters of the names of my daughters. Our tagline was – a mom’s shop (oru ammavin kadai).

You have products such as Kaphaharam made out of Tulsi to beat cold and beetroot malt. How do you come up with new products like this?

Kaphaharam was made by a manufacturer with Tulsi and honey from Himalayan flowers that had a nice fragrance. It was an Indian Government licensed product. So, we started selling Kaphaharam and during Covid time we used to sell 50 to 60 packets every day. It was a natural immunity miracle product.

My hemoglobin count was very low and that led me to design our own beetroot malt rich in iron. One of our customers wanted beetroot malt urgently. So, my husband and I went in a vehicle and gave it to him. We later came to know that his wife had an upcoming operation and her hemoglobin count had to be high. She took our beetroot malt twice a day for 15 days and her hemoglobin count increased very well. Our beetroot malt ranked in the first page of amazon.in.

With Kaphaharam

How many employees are there in Thinai Organics now?

We have a place in Madipakkam that has 6 employees who make and pack the products. We make around 10 to 15 kilos every day. So, there is no heavy manufacturing. We just use big iron kadai or pans. We buy covers and print our brand name on them. There are 2 people each at our shops in Pallikaranai and Madipakkam.

Employee Nithya completed 1 year

How many products do you sell now? What are the criteria when including products from other brands under your wing?

We have around 150 products in our own Thinai Organics brand. Around 300 products are from outside brands. We usually choose other brands from mompreneurs. We make sure that the products are licensed and certified. We sometimes do a direct verification in the factories.  

What were the challenges in selling organic food products?

The organic products don’t have preservatives and have a short shelf life. The expiry date of products like country sugar is 6 months. When millets are kept outside for 1 month, pests like vandu may come. Even today customers keep asking us about pests. We tell them to just wash and remove the pests and cook food and it is harmless. It was also a challenge to create awareness about food items such as millets. 

 

Can you tell us more about your participation in the 555 Women Power TN world record event on September 15, 2021?

Women entrepreneurs from all around the world participated in a marathon Zoom call that went on for 555 hours. I participated and spoke for 30 minutes. I got a certificate for the world record.

It was interesting to see Coconut shell containers for food on your Instagram page @thinaiorganics. Can you tell us more about that?

When I visited Kerala, I met a few Kerala artisans who were selling these coconut shells. The shells in Kerala are usually thicker. I found these coconut shell containers as a better alternative to plastic containers. So, we started selling those.

Coconut Shell containers for Food

How do you balance being an entrepreneur and other roles such as being a mom at home?

My mom comes every day to my home to take care of my kids. Even though my husband is in the IT field, he finds time to take good care of the family. So, I have a good support system. We work as a family for our business. Kids are very understanding and accept that mom has some business meetings and other official commitments.  

Saranya with her Kids

Can you please share tips to succeed as an entrepreneur?

Delegation is very important. We should not do all the work from manufacturing to packing to distribution by ourselves. You become an entrepreneur only when you trust others and delegate. Women usually multitask and get attached to their tasks. This must be avoided. The business has to run even in our absence. Delegation helps us to move from 100 orders to 1000 orders.

Singapenne Awards

You have organized many health-related talk shows on your Instagram page @thinaiorganics. How does it help?

These speakers are the best in their professions but are not very active on Instagram. Due to these talk shows, both the speakers and we gained a lot of followers. It helped us in marketing even though that was not our main motto.

What message you would like to give to the readers?

At least, our next generation should be health conscious. Now people are wealth conscious but hesitate to spend 10 rupees extra for quality food and health. Covid created a lot of awareness about health, but we still have a long way to go. I would like people to try our millet noodles, millet bisi bele bath, and millet pasta that take just 5 minutes to cook.  

Home Icon Award

Thinai Organics website: https://thinaiorganics.com/

Medavakkam Branch:

No.1, Medavakkam main road, UTI Busstop, Senthuran Colony, Madipakkam, Chennai - 91 Tamilnadu

Pallikaranai Branch:

No. 1 Plot 18, Sri Nagar, Main Road, opp. to Adayar Ananda Bhavan, LIC Nagar, Pallikaranai, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600100

+91 93422 09163

support@thinaiorganics.com