These are recipes for success. The women of rural Uttarakhand lovingly grind salt on a “silbatta” (grinding stone) with other organic spices and herbs to produce four varieties of pisyu loon, or a traditional flavoured salt. This is eaten not just in the Garhwal, Kumaon and Jaunsar regions of Uttarakhand, a state that’s fondly called Dev Bhoomi, but also Himachal.
The best thing about Namakwali is that it brings the essence of what we eat straight from the source. The efforts of the local women ensure that not only are the products high-quality, but also a reflection of tradition.
These salts add flavour to raw and cooked food, and nutrition to the diet. You can sprinkle Namakwali’s garlic, ginger, authentic mix, and heeng jeera (asafoetida-cumin) flavoured salts over vegetables like sliced cucumber, on curd, on subzis (cooked vegetables) or enjoy with rotis the way the pahadi (mountain) folk do when they’re short on accompaniments to their bread.
Cashing in on the fascination of food connoisseurs for regional recipes, Shashi Bahuguna Raturi is marketing these four types of flavoured salts to the rest of India through her brand, Namakwali.
“The salt we use for our recipes is the traditional type that is eaten here in the mountains. It’s not lacking in iodine, and is very nutritious,” says Raturi. A social activist since 1982, Raturi, who works to uplift rural communities in her state, says the women she helped would often bring her flavoured salts and other traditional foods.
“In 2018 it struck me–why not begin an enterprise that puts traditional food at the forefront? I noticed that more women were shunning the silbatta and opting for an electric grinder, so I decided to start packing flavoured salts made on a silbatta in brown bags and selling this product on Instagram. We started getting orders instantly,” she recalls.
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Grinding the salts on a grinding stone with herbs and spices imparts a greater depth of flavour to the end-product than a mechanised process can.
Old wine, new bottle
And thus, the brand became a company under the label Yellow Hinsar Private Ltd in 2020. Raturi looks upon it as an initiative to promote women’s empowerment and provide employment to women and weaker sections of the society.
The brand uses time-honoured traditional methods to craft salts that are 100 percent natural, and don’t have added preservatives. Namakwali not only promotes the cultural heritage of consuming pisyu loon, but it also provides a sustainable livelihood to the people it employs.
Namakwali has diversified its product range to include other offerings such as Pahadi Badri A2 cow ghee, organic spices, pulses, dry chutney powders and handmade spice mixes. These are crafted by women Raturi employs in Uttarakhand.
“The best thing about Namakwali is that it brings the essence of what we eat straight from the source. The efforts of the local women ensure that not only are the products high-quality, but also a reflection of tradition,” says Raturi, who has been a social activist since the age of 16.
She relies heavily on social media, particularly Instagram, for marketing. “Social media is doing its bit to bring traditional products into the limelight. Namakwali’s success can largely be attributed to it,” she confesses.
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Swimming with the sharks
Raturi and her son Shubendu were seen in Season 3 of the TV show Shark Tank, impressing the present investors with their traditional salt varieties. The duo walked away with a Rs 50-lakh investment, made by ‘Car Dekh Lo’ founder Amit Jain, who encouraged them as a small business that is trying to scale up.
“We’ve not taken the funding yet, though we’ve been in touch with Amit Jain since Shark Tank happened. We’re a brand that works at the grassroots level, and our strategy is determined by our sons-and-daughters-of-the-soil approach to doing business. This approach has paid off and besides selling on platforms like Amazon and Swiggy Instamart, we’re also in discussions in cities like London as a part of our expansion strategy,” reveals Raturi.
Despite her global dreams, Raturi says her primary mission remains to benefit the 400 to 500 farmers who supply her with traditional, natural and organic ingredients for her products from across rural Uttarakhand, and the 50 women who work at the Namakwali unit in Dehradun.
“The bulk of our profits go to these people,” says Raturi.
Log onto www.namakwali.com to get your fix of pisyu loon, and lace your food with the flavours of the mountains.
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The lead image on top depicts Namakwali founder Shashi Bahuguna Raturi on the Shark Tank TV show’s third season. (Photo courtesy Shashi Bahuguna Raturi)
Smriti Mukerji is a freelance journalist based out of New Delhi.
