PEAKLIFE

A Belgium chocolate brand offering the ultimate luxury chocolates at affordable prices, Nirvanaa have leveraged the unique combination of the finest ingredients, exclusive production methods, and stringent quality controls that Belgian chocolates follow.

With a wide variety of chocolates to select from, Nirvanaa Chocolates offers crisp and delicious Belgian chocolate chips. The flavours range from crispy milk, crispy dark, crispy orange, crispy strawberry, crispy hazelnut, crispy mint, crispy caramel, crispy sea salt to their Gourmet range of luxury chips with 4 variants namely milk, dark, orange, and sea salt.

Speaking exclusively with PeakLife, Managing Directing, Nirvanaa Chocolates, Mitesh Shah shares his experience of what attracted him to the world of chocolates and much more.

What was the whole idea behind launching Nirvanaa Chocolates and how did the idea for your business come about?

After staying in Belgium for 11 years and returning back, the anguished search for Belgian chocolates in INDIA and the realization that good chocolates were so difficult to find and the best ones are almost deceptive – this led us here. Having a channelized regulated market for Belgium chocolates at an affordable price was the idea generated soon after.

How did you come up with the name for your company?

NIRVANAA is a synonym for heaven/ closest to feeling of ecstasy. We don’t promise you heaven but our chocolates will surely give you the taste of bliss. And it additionally does help that my sons name is also Nirvaan.

Please share your experience in setting up Nirvanaa Chocolates with us?

It took us 6 to 8 months to finalize what products to bring to India as the market here is onerous. Once the products were finalized, initially we faced a lot of hardships with sorting out the customs and logistics was a struggle too. Making sure that we bring chocolates which suit Indian temperature, are affordable with a new concept of chocolate carved chips without losing the essence of it has been truly challenging. But looking at the end result and how we have grown makes all our efforts worth it.

According to you, what are the key factors that make a great entrepreneur?

Passion, dedication, persistence, team management, consistency, and most importantly hard work. The ability to embrace failures as a successful entrepreneur would have failed more times than most the people would’ve ever tried.

Who do you consider an inspiration when it comes to being an entrepreneur?

Constant undying hunger to grow individually as well as professionally and give best to the society keeps me motivated.

Could you tell us about the culture in your organisation and how did you establish it?

We highly believe in and actively take WOMEN EMPOWERMENT, 80% workforce we have is female-led and incorporated. All under the age of 22 years, also bread earners of their families. The unattainable growth rate of the business is largely due to the passion brought in by our female team. We give our team complete freedom to make mistakes as long as they learn and make themselves better. Pandemic has forced the workforce to think out of the box as the only way to survive now is to get creative and bring in reformed ideas. COVID -19 has largely affected our work pattern, we are trying to fit into new traditions of the working environment which is challenging yet turned out to be fruitful.

If you had to suggest 5 must read FMCG books during the pandemic, what would they be?

Along with FMCG books here are a few good Business Books:

1. FMCG: The Power Of Fast Moving Consumer Goods by GREG THAIN & JOHN BRADELY

2. The Shopper Marketing Revolution by TOBY DESFORGES & MIKE ANTHONY

3. Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf why? Because the cult he created in 5 years took brands like APPLE and LOUIS VUITTON 50 years to reach

4. Outsmart The MBA Clones – by DEN HERMEN

5. The Shoppers Marketing Revolution – by MIKE ANTHONY

What key activities would you recommend entrepreneurs to invest their time in?

• Read as many books as possible

• Ensure a solid feedback system is put in place for their team which should be clear and unfiltered

• Invest more time in polishing their problem solving ability

Any advice you would give for our budding entrepreneurs in the FMCG space?

FMCG is the fourth largest sector in the Indian economy. As per the current situation it’s really important to upgrade yourself digitally. The most important backbone of the business is reliability, approachability and convenience of after-sale services.