HOMEMADE AND HANDMADE – Anita’s success mantra

Anita Verma’s passion for cooking and preserving culinary heritage has found expression in ‘MANTHAN by ANITA’.  Anita is the Chief Chef of the venture and has an all-woman team in her home kitchen start-up.

Anita always loved cooking, and in Jamshedpur, where she went to live after marriage, she was able to test out her skills informally with a small community, successfully.  She continued the effort when she moved to Bangalore, and started socialising Bihari flavours, snacks, and food with her Whatsapp group friends, in the apartment complex.  That was how ‘MANTHAN by ANITA’ was born recently, with the flagship collection named ‘Bihar ke Bahar’ – a collection of snacks and sweets and the iconic litti chokha.  

Anita told us that she had chosen to name her curations ‘MANTHAN’ (which means churning) because she felt it was necessary to churn out the dying traditional flavours of India, amidst the melee of fast food and fine dining.  She wishes that the youth of today should no lose their culinary roots, which, she says is regrettably the case, and hopes that through MANTHAN she will be able to revive local Indian flavours.  

Her fist collection is understandably a collection of snacks and sweets from her home State of Bihar/Jharkhand, but Anita plans to bring local food traditions of every State into her repertoire, be it Maharashtra’s bhakarwadi, Gujarat’s fafda or Odisha’s Chenapauda.  But, she assures her firmly, that no matter what scale her business reaches, what comes out of her kitchen will always be HANDMADE AND HOMEMADE.  She believes that what makes food divine is the human touch and with her business growing, she will only engage more hands to help her and not give in to the lure of automation.  

Anita tells us that she wants to do her bit for the environment, and has reduced usage of plastic to the bare minimum in her packaging.  She uses sustainable packaging material to ship her orders.  Her innovation comes to the fore when she tells us that Valentine’s Day need not always be about gifting chocolates – how about some jaggery and coconut laddoos with a chocolate coating??  

Visit Anita’s store here to see what she has on offer for you.  She can customise gift hampers on request. 

Anita is in her fifties and hers is not just an inspirational story – but a lesson that given the will, it’s never too late to start living your dream! We are grateful to Anita that she chose IndyMandi to showcase her talent and take her offerings to the world.  We wish her continued success!!

Team IndyMandi