Ms. Nikita Naterwalla, Founder – Caim by årelang™

This is the interview of Ms. Nikita Naterwalla, Founder- Caim by årelang™. At Sugermint Media, our aim is to bring to our entrepreneurs community some of the inspiring and motivational stories from the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

As part of this endeavour, we invited yet another passionate women entrepreneur Ms. Nikita Naterwalla, Founder- Caim by årelang™.

What made you choose this field and how has your journey as an entrepreneur been so far?

Ms. Nikita Naterwalla: I have worked in the wellness space for over 20 years with a leading MNC. Although my profile was mainly operations, finance, and legal driven, I also overlooked marketing in the initial years while we were growing this company in India.

This is where my interest peaked for supplementation, which was not that popular a subject 20 years ago.

So, my interest in the subject has been fuelled by passion and also a lot of curiosity, which was only satiated by reading and researching.

The journey so far, as a new entrepreneur, has been extremely exciting. Admittedly it has been a massive learning experience for me.

The 45 days of lockdown during the 2^nd wave have been the most taxing in terms of timelines and expectations.

But one of the most valuable lessons I have learnt from this is to not get let down by the upheavals and keep my focus on my goal. All in all, this part of my career has been extremely rewarding and soul-satisfying to me.

What was the thought behind coming up with Arelang Naturals?

Ms. Nikita Naterwalla: During my 20-year career in the wellness segment, I have always wanted to step away to follow my passion.

A few years back though, I was diagnosed with Perimenopause and was prescribed 6-7 supplements a day in the form of pills and tablets.

To have supplements that are nothing but food in the form of pills, which apart from being so tedious to swallow, were absolutely unappetizing and made me feel more like a patient.

I have always had a natural aversion to swallowing tablets and despite being part of the wellness industry with a company that made supplements, I just was not a big fan of supplementing with tablets.

Having always preferred riding the pain and discomfort to provide my body with a quick remedy, I would rather allow my body to heal naturally than pump myself with unnecessary pills.

In this case, particularly, while wanting to enjoy the process of making my body healthy again, nothing that I found in the market did the job.

I remember nibbling on a candy and talking to my husband, Cyrus, about how I wished the awful tasting home remedies I was making to avoid the supplements, tasted like the candy I was enjoying.

And this was our story’s eureka moment. If it’s food that your body needs, why have it in the form of a pill?

What if we could reimagine our daily supplements? What if we could take all these supplements and add them to something that we love to eat?

With Cyrus’s medical background and my years of experience working in health and wellness, we began extensive research and development, trial and error and a multitude of taste tests.

After years of toiling, we present to you this delightful little fruit of our endeavours. Caim by årelang™ – nutrition in the most fun and delicious form, so you can really enjoy the process of making yourself healthy again!

As interest in Candyceuticals grows, is it the new nutritional delivery system?

Ms. Nikita Naterwalla: Candyceuticals are certainly the way ahead for the nutraceutical market. This delivery method promises increased bioavailability of nutrients that are fun to eat, delicious and something that each of us as individuals look forward to, rather than going through the unpleasantness of swallowing nasty pills and large tablets.

Gummies have been around for a while now and have already taken over a growing segment of this market.

Expanding this segment with delicious soft-centred chocolates and other forms of confectionery will most certainly be a more popular format of getting the vital nutrients into the body.

Would you not prefer a delicious guilt-free confectionery over a hard to swallow the pill? Additionally, it is not just confectionery as a new delivery system for nutrition, but also the fact that plant-based ingredients are the future of supplementation.

They are safer, healthier and most importantly, they allow your body and its functions to actually work the way they were built to work.

What are the opportunities anticipated in the health and wellness industry? How do you see the Candyceutical market growing and expanding over the period?

Ms. Nikita Naterwalla: According to a very recent FSSAI publication, the Indian Nutraceutical Market is slated to be valued at $18B from the current market size of $4B at an expected CAGR of 35%. The Candyceutical market will most certainly impact greatly to this growth.

In India, the Candyceuticals market is on the rise and it is opening up new opportunities for formulators who are willing to experiment both in terms of the latest applications and delivery formats.

Reports suggest that the Candyceutical market will grow by a six per cent CAGR through the end of this decade, reaching a market size of $5.8 billion worldwide in 2029.

The Candyceutical market will become an integral part of the growing Nutraceutical market which was valued in 2015 at $ 184B and was pegged to grow to $ 302B in 2022 at a compounding growth rate of 8.3%.

However, by 2020 this market was already valued at $412.7B and grew at an exponential CAGR of 17.5%.

If we take this growth trend into account, by 2027 the global nutraceutical market will be at a whopping $1,276B with India slated to be one of the biggest contributors to the increasing market size.

3 years from now where do you see Arelang Naturals®? Kindly throw light on the Vision of the brand? What are the forthcoming initiatives in the long run?

Ms. Nikita Naterwalla: Our vision is to revolutionize supplementation. We have in the pipeline over 20 formulations that we promise to bring to our consumers in innovative forms of confectionery within the next 2 years or so.

Again, as we expand, we will be introducing multiple flavour variants of our formulations and possibly more formulations as we see the need.

Caim by arelang is the first brand launched by årelang Naturals® and offers supplementation through confectionery.

Hopefully, if things go as planned, you will be seeing several new innovative initiatives from us in the field of wellness in the coming years.

How do you maintain a healthy work-life balance?

I would be lying if I said that I have mastered the art of a healthy work-life balance. And the fact is that no new start-up founder can ever have enough hours in the day.

But what works for me is to try and prioritize my day. I use my mornings for a little me time – plan my day, read the papers and exercise.

This keeps me well-paced, helps start my workday with a sense of direction with definitive goals that I need to achieve.

I get a lot accomplished when I maintain my sanity and do not allow stress and panic to get into my day.

Discipline and time management are both essential when you are juggling multiple roles. I don’t ever compromise on my time with my family and make sure that the element of meeting friends and maintaining a healthy social life is also part of my week.

I suppose the key take-aways are – planning well, being disciplined and prioritizing my time.

If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it?

Ms. Nikita Naterwalla: Be true to your venture and stay focussed on your goals. Expect a few good days between the really bad ones and expect days where you just want to give up.

Starting a company is hard, growing a new company is harder and running it is the hardest. There will be days when you feel like you are not winning or getting anywhere.

Don’t lose hope – remember why you started and keep working towards your goal. Always celebrate the small wins – your first customer, when your website goes live or when your first shipment of ingredients comes into your warehouse because recognizing the small victories of your business will boost your morale and give you a new surge of energy and provide you and your team with the motivation you need to get to your next victory.

Website: https://arelang.com

We hope you find the inspiring interview of Ms. Nikita Naterwalla useful and inspiring through your entrepreneurial journey and will keep you inspired.

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