Health & Beyond Foods Pvt. Ltd.: Empowering Healthy Living
Over the past few years, more people have been witnessing a decreased quality of life and even serious medical complications. Apart from lifestyle changes, poor dietary habits are a leading cause of deteriorating health conditions, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, among others.
Eating a balanced and nutritious diet can not just help manage and improve many health conditions but also reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases.
Contrary to people’s belief, eating well doesn’t have to be equivalent to sacrificing your taste or convenience. Health & Beyond Foods, a health and wellness company, creates nutritious and delicious foods that fit seamlessly into lifestyles.
The company operates in two verticals, namely Flax and Beyond Fit. Flax offers plant-based omega-3s, fibre, and protein for a healthy snack or meal replacement. Beyond Fit provides high-fibre snacks without sacrificing taste.
Health & Beyond Foods offers on-demand delivery through their cafes, QSRs (Quick Service Restaurants), and cloud kitchens. They also offer a subscription service for healthy meals.
Their clientele includes health-conscious individuals, athletes, fitness enthusiasts, people with dietary restrictions, busy professionals, schools and universities, corporations, and fitness and wellness centres.
The company is steadily establishing its reach across India, with its head office and six other branches in Mumbai, two branches in Bangalore, and one in Goa.
Health & Beyond Foods strives to improve health and wellness by empowering individuals to make positive lifestyle changes. They offer high-quality products and services through their Flax, Beyond Fit, and Careless by Flax brands to inspire healthy living. They also prioritise creating a positive and sustainable work environment for their employees.
Flax Healthy Living, a future-ready brand promoting clean and healthy eating since 2016, has kitchens in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Pune. They enable conscious food choices and aim to make healthy eating a daily habit. Flax Healthy Living offers Super Bowls packed with essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.
Their menu draws inspiration from global cultures, and they source locally with the utmost care to find the highest quality ingredients. They fuel the transition towards healthy living by providing delicious and nutritious taste experiences.
Beyondfit is a brand dedicated to promoting a healthy lifestyle by focusing on gut health and nutrition. They offer meal plans designed by an expert panel of doctors and nutritionists, backed by Dr Muffazal Lakdawala’s knowledge. Beyondfit believes that food, flavour, and nutrition are the three pillars of a healthy lifestyle.
They provide natural and healthy food options without compromising on taste or convenience. Beyondfit aims to be the one-stop solution for all nutritional needs, redefining fitness food for people looking to maintain, gain, or improve their health.
They also offer curated meal plans for those with diabetes/PCOS and a wide range of unique recipes to satisfy various health needs and taste preferences.
A hospitality professional with 15 years of experience, Gurmeet Arora has successfully transitioned from being a professional DJ/Producer signed to Universal Music Group, leading successful brands across various industries, including fine dining and health food, demonstrating expertise in brand positioning, strategic planning, and team management.
A firm believer that success comes from having a passion for what you do and taking calculated risks backed by faith, Gurmeet considers change is a crucial aspect of entrepreneurship.
His favourite quote, “Success never aligns without pillars of failure and faith,” encapsulates his approach to life. Apart from entrepreneurship, writing is also a passion of Gurmeet’s, and he recently released his first book, “Reflections of a Mind,” on Amazon.
For Gurmeet, the idea to join the industry came from his instincts, health, and vision for creating successful brands. After experiencing borderline lifestyle illnesses due to his career in nightlife, he made lifestyle changes and became passionate about promoting healthy living, and that’s what led to the inception of Health & Beyond Foods in 2016.
Starting in the industry as an amateur swimmer, learning from the waves and tides and embracing change, failure, and learning, it was his ability to fight, create, and motivate himself and others that made him strong in the tricky and tough food business. Gurmeet is a detail-oriented entrepreneur who pays attention to his business moves and reflects on his decisions.
Gurmeet believes continuous learning, effective communication, strategic thinking, resilience, decisiveness, empathy, and humility are key qualities of a leader.
“A leader must be willing to learn and adapt to the changing times while having a clear vision for their business and being able to make data-driven decisions. A growth mindset and supportive networks can help foster resilience, while active listening and feedback help develop effective communication skills. Practice decision-making to hone decisiveness, and being empathetic and humble can help you relate to and understand team members’ and customers’ needs and concerns.”
Gurmeet
Building confidence and self-belief are two of the most challenging things entrepreneurs have to deal with. In addition to handling teams, devising marketing strategies, controlling costs, driving profits, and achieving growth, emotional intelligence is critical for success.
Gurmeet shares, “It was something that I struggled with, along with learning my audience and the ebb and flow of my product and brand. However, decision-making became a lot easier and more aligned with my values once I achieved a balance between emotional intelligence and intellectual intelligence.
The COVID-19 pandemic was inadvertently one of the toughest times for Health & Beyond Foods. As a leader, Gurmeet had to make some difficult decisions, including shutting some stores.
“Even during hardship, I still believed in our business and made some strategic moves. Delaying certain projects helped us with the cash flows, and we managed to build a bigger kitchen and opened new locations with better rental rates. We also took advantage of better negotiation opportunities, such as waivers and overall rates, to help us stay afloat during the pandemic. These decisions ultimately helped us sail through the tough times,”
Gurmeet
A focused approach to elevating product quality and customer experience is what separates Health & Beyond Foods. A dedicated team to maintain hygiene and quality, prompt handling of complaints and staff training to avoid repetitions of mistakes results in the highest number of repeat users.
Providing top-notch service and experience for customers while taking care of employees’ basic needs is Gurmeet’s way of balancing. He emphasises maintaining transparency in all hierarchies and open communication between higher management and employees.
For Gurmeet, ‘communication’ is the best culture a company can have. He shares, “Although big companies may have great work cultures, there may still be unhappy employees and unfinished projects. However, when you communicate well, you fail well. When you fail well, you succeed well.”
Health & Beyond Foods have achieved numerous milestones and has created a trusted brand in the health industry. Their efforts have been recognised with various awards and accolades over the years, including,
· Best start-up of 2023
· Top achievers, industry professionals
· Economic times’ most premium brand.
· Times Food Delivery Icons - Best Healthy Food
· Food Connoisseurs - Best Healthy Food.
· Wellbeing Business world 40 under 40 in the awards
Gurmeet defines success as something that comes from within and is not solely measured by external factors such as turnover, valuation, or funding. Instead, success is seen as inspiring others and constantly fostering a learning environment for everyone around them.
“Building a successful brand, an ethical company, having loyal customers and happy employees and creating a positive change is success in my eyes,” adds Gurmeet.
Gurmeet plans for the future of FLAX and Beyond Fit to gain more market share, execute large-scale operations, and create a strong community. He aims to achieve the highest form of employee satisfaction and expand to more cities and countries.
Advising young entrepreneurs,
“Entrepreneurship often requires bold decisions, precise execution, and a willingness to build and break ideas. Overcome obstacles with new techniques, knowing every problem has a solution. Be alive and connected with your brand and its nuances. This relationship will be of hate and love. Choose love and proceed with fierce determination and confidence, but always stay humble.”
Gurmeet
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