Field Notes
Notes from the factory floor
A manufacturer's perspective on protein economics, extrusion, and building affordable nutrition at scale in India. Less polished than a press release, closer to how we actually think about it.
What a gram of protein actually costs in India
The West keeps celebrating price parity with beef. In India the benchmark is paneer and chicken, the two cost lines are moving apart, and the reason comes down to which machine you bet on.
2026-06-16
India doesn't have a protein problem. It has a protein manufacturing problem.
The hard part of affordable protein in India was never demand or branding. It is who can actually make it at a price people will pay, batch after batch. Including an autopsy of the first wave, which I was part of, that got the cost wrong before anyone tasted the product.
2026-06-15
The line behind the brands
Why I build process capability instead of a consumer label. 100 MT/day of pasta capacity took ten years and two factories, and somewhere in there we became the production backbone for 30+ brands most people have eaten without knowing our name.
2026-06-16
What it actually takes to manufacture food that works
Two stories from the factory floor. The gluten-free pasta that kept falling apart until we cracked the process, and the roasting problem that taught me you can optimise at the margins but you cannot out-engineer physics.
2026-06-16