Indian Snack House Founders on Building a Clean-Label Snack Brand

For many Indians who move away from home, it is often food that triggers the strongest sense of nostalgia. The snacks found in childhood kitchens, simple, familiar and deeply regional, are not always easy to find in modern cities. It was this gap between memory and availability that led to the creation of Indian Snack House.

Founded by Rajakumaran R. and Anbarasan, the brand is reimagining traditional South Indian snacks for today’s consumers through a clean-label, D2C-first approach. On the occasion of National Startup Day, Local Samosa spoke to the founders about building an authentic food brand, scaling native flavours, and navigating India’s competitive snacking market.

Nostalgia, Small-Town Snacks and the Birth of Indian Snack House

Rajakumaran’s upbringing in Nagercoil, Kanyakumari, played a defining role in shaping Indian Snack House. Growing up across small towns in South India, he was surrounded by native snacks that were part of everyday life rather than special occasions.

“I come from Nagercoil in Kanyakumari, a border district between Tamil Nadu and Kerala. My entire childhood and college life were spent in small towns and cities across South India,” he says. “Growing up in this region meant being surrounded by native delicacies like Nagercoil banana chips, Tirunelveli halwa, Thoothukudi macaroons and Srivilliputhur palkova. These weren’t festival treats, but were everyday comforts. In most homes, you’d always find them in the snack dabba.”

After moving to Bengaluru for his first startup job, Rajakumaran noticed a stark contrast between the easy availability of global cuisines and the absence of authentic South Indian snacks. “The city can give you ‘Chinese noodles’, ‘Italian pizza’, ‘Korean bubble tea’, ‘American burgers’ and ‘Japanese sushi’ within minutes, yet the snacks that millions of South Indians actually grew up with were either missing or tasted nothing like home.” 

Indian Snack House emerged from this gap, driven by nostalgia and the desire to make native snacks accessible at scale without compromising on taste or purity. “Indian Snack House was born from that nostalgia, not just to recreate flavours from home, but to make authentic native snacks accessible at scale.”

Two Foundational Decisions: Native Makers and Clean Ingredients

From concept to launch, two decisions fundamentally shaped the brand’s direction.

The first was choosing native makers over factories. While large factories offered efficiency and scale, the founders found that authenticity suffered every time they went down that path. “Every time we tried that, we lost the one thing that mattered most — authentic taste,” Rajakumaran explains. Instead, Indian Snack House partnered with traditional makers across 15 towns in South India, despite the operational complexity of small batches, daily sourcing and coordination.

The second decision was a firm commitment to clean ingredients from day one. The founders wanted the brand to be trusted as an everyday option, particularly for families. “We didn’t just want nostalgia, we wanted trust. We wanted a modern mother to confidently choose our snacks as an everyday option for her child,” he says. This led to a non-negotiable clean-label policy of no palm oil, no preservatives and no artificial colours, even though nearly 95% of native makers had to create separate batches to meet these standards.

Why Regional South Indian Flavours Remain Central

Staying rooted in regional flavours was a conscious choice for Indian Snack House. Rajakumaran contrasts traditional snacks with many modern products engineered with artificial enhancers to drive overconsumption.

“Traditional South Indian snacks are born in home kitchens, refined over generations by paatis, using native ingredients and built around balance, satiety and sustainability,” he says. These foods were designed to nourish everyday life rather than deliver momentary excitement, which is why they continue to resonate so strongly.

“They become comfort food, not cravings,” he adds, noting that the familiarity and warmth of native snacks cannot be matched by modern or international flavours.

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Scaling Without Losing the ‘Tastes Like Home’ Experience

For Indian Snack House, scaling is about protecting authenticity rather than altering the product. “For us, scaling doesn’t mean changing what we make; it means building systems that protect it,” Rajakumaran says.

The brand has invested heavily in processes, quality checks and standardisation while continuing with small-batch production and native makers. Instead of using preservatives to extend shelf life, Indian Snack House relies on advanced packaging technologies to keep products fresh naturally.

“Real scale is when every customer, in every city, gets the same ‘this tastes like home’ experience, no matter how big we grow.”

Early Challenges in the D2C Snacking Space

Entering India’s competitive D2C snacking market came with clear challenges. One of the most significant was hiring the right talent in the early years.

Rajakumaran notes that attracting skilled professionals willing to navigate uncertainty was difficult for a young brand. Managing rising marketing costs was another hurdle, particularly in the early days when budgets limited the ability to experiment across channels.

How Consumers Are Responding to Clean-Label Snacking

According to Anbarasan, clean and mindful snacking is still in its early adoption phase in India. “Today, only a small segment of consumers actively looks for these factors while making snacking decisions,” he says.

However, awareness is growing rapidly, especially among families and parents. A significant portion of Indian Snack House’s customers buy snacks for their children, making the clean-label promise a key driver of repeat purchases. “We believe clean, mindful snacking will move from being a niche preference to a default expectation,” he adds.

Bootstrapping, Angel Backing and Institutional Support

In the early days, both founders invested their personal savings to build Indian Snack House. The first external funding came from angel investors who had previously worked with them and trusted their execution.

Founders such as Sujayath Ali and Navneetha Krishnan of Voonik, along with former colleagues, backed the brand early. Institutional support followed with Titan Capital, whose guidance helped shape the company’s approach to scale and sustainability. Anbarasan explains that external capital enabled infrastructure upgrades at the native maker level, supported long-term decision-making and created room for experimentation and learning.

Customer Feedback as a Growth Driver

Direct customer feedback has been central to Indian Snack House’s product strategy. Operating as a D2C-first brand allowed the team to receive immediate, unfiltered responses. “We deliver an order today, and within 2–3 hours, we know if something went wrong,” Anbarasan says.

Over two years, the brand experimented with more than 60 products, retaining only 25 based on customer feedback. This approach has also strengthened performance on marketplaces, with over 8,000 ratings, a 4.7-star rating on Swiggy and 4.5 stars on Zomato.

Maintaining Brand Discipline Across Platforms

As Indian Snack House expands across its website, Swiggy and Zomato, the founders rely on a few non-negotiable principles. “No matter where a customer buys from, the taste and authenticity remain exactly what they expect,” Anbarasan says. The clean-label promise also remains unchanged, regardless of operational complexity. By keeping these fundamentals uncompromising, the brand has been able to scale without losing its identity.

Making Regional Snacks National

One of the milestones the founders are most proud of is making iconic South Indian snacks widely accessible.

“Today, we deliver over 1.25 lakh packets of authentic snacks and sweets every month, without compromising on taste or our clean-label promise,” Anbarasan says. What stands out most is instant accessibility. Customers in cities like Mumbai can now order Tirunelveli halwa or Thoothukudi macaroons and receive them within minutes. “We see this less as a milestone and more as a continuing journey of making regional Indian snacks truly national, and eventually global, without losing their soul.”

A Message to Aspiring Founders on National Startup Day

Sharing his advice on National Startup Day, Rajakumaran speaks as a founder still building. “I’m not sharing this as someone who has ‘made it’, but as someone who is building alongside you, learning every single day.”