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From inventing technology to fly rockets to launching a baby food brand, mother blogger Jyoti Srivastava shares her journey.
According to a report published by Ashoka University, 73 percent of Indian women quit their jobs after the birth of their first child. Mom blogger Jyoti Srivastava, an engineer by profession, faced the same ordeal after the birth of her son in 2019.
She used to design rockets for the Indian Army before taking maternity leave. After giving birth to her son, Srivastava wanted to resume her career, realizing that she was overworked and underpaid in her previous job, which did not allow her to spend time with her son. It was then that Srivastava took a bold step to change fields. She did her certification course on IYCF (Infant and Young Child Feeding) and Child and Maternal Nutrition from UNICEF and started her Instagram page. She now runs a millet-based baby foods business called Little Cherry Foods.
Jyoti Srivastava: “I lost hope and felt my career was over”
Looking back on her journey to entrepreneurship, Jyoti Srivastava calls it miraculous. Having an M.Tech in Chemical Engineering, she has an understanding of the fundamentals of food processing technology. And her experience in managing large explosives manufacturing plants helped her design process and SOPs for a food company.
“I have taken certification in infant and young child feeding from UNICEF. This certification helped me understand the roles of various micro and macro nutrients, minerals and vitamins in the growth and development of babies,” she says, “I did my own study and research to understand all millets. I also read various popular texts in Ayurveda to understand the role of various herbs in the development of babies. Product formulations are created with nutritional needs and taste in mind. I cook millets 3 times a day to make recipes,” said the 33-year-old, popularly known by her moniker ‘LittleCherrymom’ on Instagram.
However, this journey is not easy. “There have been challenges. There is a very difficult stage full of despair. I wanted to restart my career while my son was growing up. But in my experience there are no job opportunities in the city (Meerut). I lost all hope and felt my career was over,” she said.
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Jyoti Srivastava, who started her company: Friends and relatives used to joke about blogging on social media.
Studying millets for her son’s nutritional needs gave her hope and a way forward. After becoming UNICEF certified, she started her Instagram page with the intention of educating other new mothers about millets and their health benefits. She started posting information about healthy baby food options on her social media page and gained followers. “That was the time when some of my friends and relatives joked about blogging on social media. They used to say that I had ruined my career by quitting my job. I don’t know where the money will come from to start a new company. But fortunately, my husband and I were able to overcome the challenge of lack of resources,” she says.
She says getting the right funding to start her business was a tough task. “I started conducting online workshops to raise the initial amount. Then we were able to get a startup loan from a government bank. Moms from all over the country started connecting with my posts and my page became popular. When we launched our first batch of products we had a community of 50,000+ mothers. I am grateful to all the fellow mothers who believed in me when we started,” she tells us.
Jyoti Srivastava on spreading awareness about millets: To teach is to learn again
One of the reasons behind starting the millet-based food brand was Srivastava’s inability to find reliable and healthy food options for her son. “The reason for targeting the baby food segment was the lack of options for my child. Not all current baby food sold over the counter is healthy. It is full of sugar and contains highly processed chemicals,” she says.
Today, apart from running a successful company, Jyoti, now a mother of two, also conducts workshops and helps guide mothers looking for nutritious and healthy baby food options. “I take workshops on millets for babies, how to reverse feeding behavior and how to start the solids journey. These are the challenges many new mothers face today. They have very little reliable guidance. Especially for working women in a nuclear family setup,” she says.