Amarpreet Kaur, Co-founder of Good Monk, discusses key trends shaping India’s nutraceutical market, including shifting consumer behaviour, regulatory clarity, and the growing demand for functional, evidence-based nutrition in an exclusive interview with Neha Aathavale
What gaps in the Indian nutrition supplement market did you identify that led to the creation of Good Monk’s hassle-free daily nutrition concept?
With our fast paced lives, changing environment and lack of time tend to leave us with minimal time to focus on health and nutrition tends to take a back seat. Good Monk came to life from a very personal experience where we identified a gap that we experienced. As parents, we always go through anger and frustration of kids not eating healthy food and choosing junk or unhealthy foods. As a parent you are often caught in between getting their tummies full with what they want or battling with them to feed them healthy, nutritious food. We realised that it is a battle that every parent has to fight daily at home with their kids. All we needed was a partner in this journey, which can make it a bit easy for us – a magic potion, which can help us get them to eat healthy, help solve the nutrition gap in the modern families today. Solve the glaring deficiencies of micro-nutrients which over 80 per cent of Indians suffer from, which is creating havoc in terms of families health and immunity. There was a need for something that made nutrition easy and solved the nutritional requirement in a hasslefree manner.
How do you approach product formulation to ensure a scientifically-backed nutrient mix while keeping it convenient and palatable for consumers?
As Indians we all love our meal time. Meals are more of an emotion for us as opposed to a means of nutrition, and one of the biggest challenges facing us was how to add nutrition without ruining the experience. One of the foremost steps to which was building the formulation with no taste maskers, added salt, sugar or preservatives. Good Monk offers the right blend of nutrients and to deliver that, it requires a very rigorous R&D approach. We have a very strong team of nutritionists, R&D team which work under the guidance of an extremely seasoned Scientific Council to work rigorously to identify ingredients and create formulations that align with our goal of making nutrition easy, clean and effective. We work with some of the country’s best ingredient suppliers and work with best in class nutra manufacturers that uphold highest quality standards in manufacturing of both ingredients and the finished product.
In a competitive market with multiple supplements, what strategies have helped Good Monk differentiate itself and gain traction?
Our product offering is fairly differentiated from the current nutrition supplement landscape. We are focusing on making products that don’t seem like an additional step to your already stretched lifestyle. We want to smuggle nutrition seamlessly into your daily meals without altering the taste or texture or experience of your meals. This has been our key USP and consumers are choosing us for convenience. While innovating, our goal is to create options that provide the necessary micro-nutrients to our consumers. One of our best-sellers, Healthy 50+ was launched when we realised that this age bracket has a higher need of a certain micro-nutrient profile due to poor nutrition absorption and dietary deficiencies. At an early stage of our journey, we invested in clinical testing for some of our products and have seen very successful results from the same, strengthening our belief that our nutrient combination and application approach promises a superior product solution to consumer needs.
What trends in consumer behaviour and nutrition habits in India have influenced your product development and market strategy?
While wellness is a mainstream term, most consumers are still apprehensive about ways in which they need to integrate the wellness products in their lives. It is no longer about popping multiple supplements, it is about ingredients, nutrition, efficacy, absorption and a lot more. Consumers are way more aware of their body requirements and they prefer clear messaging on what the product does. As brands, we have the responsibility to understand our context and change our approach based on the altered consumer profile across different platforms. For e.g. A Tier 1 town consumer who is entering the category has very different questions vs somebody in a metro, who’s been having supplements for many years. We do believe that nutrition, wellness information and science has to be made easy for consumers to understand – only then will it help to earn their trust and confidence. We also try to study our consumer’s media habits and affinity in terms of interests etc so as to customise communication across different platforms for higher resonance.
How does the current regulatory environment for nutraceuticals in India impact your product offerings and growth plans?
India’s regulatory and policy environment is extremely stringent about its guidelines, thereby keeping consumer interest at the top. They are very supportive and encouraging of the needs of young start-ups that are trying to solve a consumer problem. The system provides clear guidelines in most areas – it provides fair clarity on what we can/cannot do. As brands, we need to ensure that consumer welfare is primary and as long as we work within the guidelines and abide by policies, the system facilitates brands. The future is preventive nutrition with functional solutions. Consumers demand for clean, easy to use and effective nutrient solutions is going to explode across multiple areas and not only restrict to a few generic areas. Evidence based claims along with some level of personalisation and customisation will drive higher affinity and stickiness with brands. Brands that are able to integrate tech solutions that help consumers identify their challenges and solve them, will stay ahead of competition. Consumers demand for effectiveness over natural or any other trend/fad will clearly help differentiate between winners.
Which areas of the Indian nutra market does Good Monk see as opportunities for innovation, and how do you plan to expand your product portfolio in the coming years?
Wellness as a segment is seeing a lot of consumer traction and the kind of choices being made are extremely varied. We are able to bring people into the category through our unique formats and offerings. One of the biggest advantages of being a D2C brand is that we are connected directly with consumers and hence have first hand feedback on what the consumer wants and requires. Consumer feedback has been the backbone of our innovation strategy and we have found great success listening to our consumers on what are their pain points and unmet needs.
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