An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Reena Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO of Shandi Global, a Singapore-headquartered clean nutrition company
Dr. Reena Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO of Singapore-headquartered Shandi Global, pioneers clean nutrition. In this interview, she unveils how Shandi is delivering premium plant proteins to India, blending innovation, health, and sustainability to transform consumer wellness one shake at a time.
Can you share how your background led you to co-found Shandi Global?
Dr. Reena Sharma: Shandi Global was not born out of a market trend or a business opportunity, it emerged from a deep intersection of science, healthcare, and lived experience.
Both founders come from strong academic and industry backgrounds. I hold a PhD in healthcare and have spent years working closely with health systems, nutrition science, and patient outcomes.
My co-founder, Dr. Gaurav Sharma, has over two decades of experience in food technology and ingredient innovation, working at the core of how food systems are built, not just branded.
What brought us together was a shared realisation that nutrition problems are rarely solved at the food level, they must be solved at the ingredient level.
As vegetarians and Indians, we were also consumers within the same broken system. Despite awareness, education, and intent, meeting daily protein needs through everyday food was difficult. That gap between knowledge and access became impossible to ignore.
Shandi Global was founded to address that gap, not by creating another product, but by re-engineering protein itself so it could work across cultures, cuisines, budgets, and dietary restrictions.
What problem were you solving when you launched Shandi Global, and how has the company evolved since its inception?
Dr. Reena Sharma: The core problem has remained the same since day one, global protein deficiency. What has evolved is how that problem presents itself in different markets.
In countries like Singapore and Australia, protein availability is not the issue. Instead, the challenges revolve around sustainability, clean labels, and reducing dependence on animal protein. In India and parts of Africa, the challenge is far more fundamental, affordable, digestible, and culturally adaptable protein access.
Globally, nearly 1 billion people suffer from protein deficiency, and in India alone, 70-80% of the population does not meet daily protein requirements, including urban and meat-eating populations.
Shandi Global evolved by keeping the science constant while adapting the application. The same core protein technology supports sustainability goals in developed markets and nutritional accessibility in developing ones.
What strategies have you implemented to foster innovation and resilience within Shandi Global’s team?
Dr. Reena Sharma: From the beginning, we made a conscious decision, Shandi Global would be an ingredient-first company, not a marketing-first brand.
Innovation is embedded structurally. Out of a team of around 20 people, a significant portion, including the founders, comes from R&D and scientific backgrounds. This ensures decisions are driven by feasibility, nutrition, and long-term impact, not trends.
Resilience comes from solving a problem that doesn’t disappear with market cycles. Food brands that rely heavily on advertising often struggle when consumer sentiment shifts. When you build something that genuinely solves a structural problem, like protein affordability and digestibility, demand sustains itself.
In our case, the product becomes the marketing.
What do you see as the most pressing trends or disruptions in the industry right now?
Dr. Reena Sharma: Three forces are shaping the industry simultaneously: First, health awareness. People are no longer waiting to fall ill. Preventive nutrition, regular health checks, and diet correction are becoming mainstream, even in urban India.
Second, global trade and ingredient access. While this increases availability, it also exposes markets to highly processed, expensive proteins that are not culturally or economically suitable for everyone.
Third, ethical and clean-label consciousness. In India, this often precedes sustainability. People are questioning additives, hormones, and processing methods long before they discuss carbon footprints.
These trends are expanding the market, but also demanding greater responsibility from food companies.
How has Shandi Global navigated recent global challenges like economic shifts or regulatory changes?
Dr. Reena Sharma: We view regulation not as a hurdle, but as a design benchmark. From the outset, our protein technology was developed without additives, stabilisers, or hard-to-pronounce ingredients. As a result, regulatory changes, whether around plant-based labelling, additives, or processing, have not disrupted our operations.
Economically, affordability has always been central to our design philosophy. When inflation or supply chain pressures arise, products built on expensive inputs struggle. Ingredient-level innovation gives us flexibility and resilience.
Simply put, we prepared for future regulations before they arrived.
If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially women in leadership, what would it be?
Dr. Reena Sharma: Build for impact before income. India does not suffer from a lack of brands, it suffers from a lack of solutions. Food-tech founders must ask themselves, Who does this truly help? If the answer is only a small, already-privileged group, the impact will be limited.
For women in leadership especially, purpose matters. When your work is tied to improving health, nutrition, or future generations, resilience comes naturally. The journey is hard, but impact-driven work sustains you far longer than valuation metrics.
Dr. Reena Sharma’s Shandi Global is reshaping India’s nutrition landscape with clean plant proteins. Her insights on accessibility, taste, and health empower mindful eating. Adopt these strategies for vitality—thank you, Dr. Sharma, for fueling a healthier, sustainable future for Indian consumers!
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