From excess milk during lockdown to building a homegrown luxury superfoods brand, Nitya Ganapathy’s journey with Nei Native is rooted in nostalgia and a bold leap of faith. In this interview of Her Circle Bizruptors, the founder of Nei Native shares how a simple batch of ghee sparked a ‘eureka’ moment-one that led her to quit her corporate media career and build a brand that brings back the aroma, flavour, and texture of the ghee many of us grew up with.
Nitya walks us through Nei Native’s evolution from ghee to a wider range of Indian everyday essentials like oils, filter coffee, haldi, raw honey, and traditional South Indian podis. As she expands the product line, she believed in staying deeply connected to authenticity and quality. She also opens up about the lesser-seen side of entrepreneurship: product breakages, packaging lessons learnt the hard way, and why those moments of heartache were crucial to building a resilient business.