A healthy nut' cracker

Healthy snacking doesn’t need to end with a handful of nuts and fruits. Most people tend to take the easy route and reach out for sugary treats as soon as the mid-afternoon slump hits. And before you realise, those extra inches start creeping in on you. Two young city girls are going Nut’ty. No, not literally.

Sania Shetty Sachdeva (commerce graduate from Mount Carmel) who spent a few years in the IT industry and Simran Sachdeva (travel and tourism graduate from Christ College) took the plunge into entrepreneurship with Nutkhat Bar out of their humble abode in Bengaluru.

They make healthy homemade granola bars that are fresh, packed with everything that's good for you. They also help the IT gen next to steer away from unhealthy snacking. We find out more on their healthy journey.

Sania states, “I just got married and my husband  coined our venture Nutkhat Bar. With an MBA in HR, I was working as a recruiter at a leading software solutions firm and decided to take a break to de-stress from the hectic corporate life. Post wedding I took some time off to know my Punjabi family better. I’m a Shetty from Mangaluru and in the process learnt plenty more on the food front and came up for a recipe to cook a healthy snack for my husband. After trials and errors I created our Signature Bar. My sister-in-law Simran loved them and we shared samples with our family and friends and received great feedback and that’s when we decided to create more flavours and our first exhibition at a star hotel was completely sold out.”

The challenges were many as Sania confesses that they had to educate people, specially the masses on how a granola bar is different from the regular dry fruit chikki. The true mark of a genius is turning plebian into splendour. The duo specialises in homemade granola bars (Signature, very berry vanilla, sunny surprise, choco crunch and breakfast cereals) and take orders on Whatsapp and Facebook and have participated in various city exhibitions and malls. So what’s unique about their granola bars we wonder and Sania who makes them fresh every single day, says, “I make them fresh without any added sugars or preservatives and also customise the flavours to suit anyone’s preferences and palate. A pack of six granola bars costs Rs 300.”

Simran adds that she likes to help Sania, her friend and co-sister with collaborations and spreading the good word. When she’s not working, Sania adds, “I’ve always loved baking and continue to find joy in baking (which is apparent). That’s my happy place. I also enjoy gardening and dancing. But my true passion lies in travelling and food tasting and trying to incorporate new techniques in everyday cooking.”