We were lucky to catch up with Chandani Kohli recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chandani, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Cookies are an “every person” food with no class barrier and they are a trusted pantry staple. You’ll find them as tea time companions, a buttery, sugar fix or an energy boost. While there is a long list of favourite cookie flavours and heritage assortments (think: Italian biscotti, French sable, British Shortbread), there is little to no presence of Indian cookies in the Western market.

Coming from a culture that is underscored by its sweets, snacks and spices, I found there to be a lack of accessibility to such treats in Western markets. Even when found, the offerings are not particularly nutritional or eco-friendly nor are they a true representation of what Indian biscuits and snacks could be, channeling the riches of the subcontinent’s flavours and craft and leaving the colonial influences at bay. This became more apparent and essentially the aha moment after my second child, a time when “sweetening the mouth” with treats is a ritual in celebrating such auspicious moments. Thus my journey with Biskut Bar ™ began.

Our offerings of boldly aromatic biscuits are made from best in class single-origin spices with regenerative farming practices and ethical production, using unrefined sugars and organic ingredients and plastic-free packaging with a focus on reusability. In each intentional and unique recipe, Biskut Bar ™ becomes a portal through my South Asian heritage via craft and flavour showcasing the riches inherent of the culture.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Biskut Bar ™ is a premium Indian biscuit company offering a portal into South Asian flavours, craft and heritage.

Our award-winning, boldly aromatic biscuit flavors are mindfully crafted with single origin spices, unrefined sugars and organic ingredients within an ethical supply chain. All goods are then packaged artfully in recyclable and plastic-free materials with an emphases on reusability.

In playful exploration of spices, often paying homage to Ayurveda, we are reimagining the homely snack item for the modern pantry.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

When my husband and I transplanted to London, I was not working the first few months and in exploring my new home, I was naturally inclined to dive deep into the food scene, then I started to cook at home more. The more I read about cooking, the more I fell in love with the process, and the more I cooked, the more I could deconstruct each ingredient into a singular origin, making each from scratch. Not revolutionary, I know, but all of a sudden I felt that I could make anything. With the world wide web at my fingertips, I made all things for which I had an affinity.

As I continued my career in fashion, I also took further interest in my kitchen adventures and found myself going back to South Asian sweets over and over trying to find new ways to curb my sweet tooth. I wanted to love them the way I did their Western counterparts, but I just couldn’t devour the all too sweet sweets in the same way. I started to reminisce about the Indian biscuits and snacks eaten on trips to Patiala, Punjab.

After my second child, I noticed that the access towards the nostalgic treats were heaving limited and inaccessible in Western markets. When they were found at specific South Asian shops, the biscuits were not considered for the quality of ingredients, the ethical production, or eco-friendly packaging often wrapped in single use plastic and made with palm oil and preservatives.

On pantry shelves, supermarkets and specialty shops Italian cantucci, French sable, British shortbread and countless other heritage biscuits sit comfortably.

Where are the Indian biscuits, I thought?

Biskut Bar was borne from a desire to answer that question.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I love listening business books and podcasts while I bake – super motivational! The more recent of them are as follows:

1. Traction by Gino Wickman, which is actually more suitable to large companies but I’m of the mindset that if I can operate like a large company (even on a tiny scale) from the onset, I’m building myself a more solid foundation to move into that large company space with each growing phase.
2. Let My People Go Surfing by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is an easy one just to hear how to build a company that is not just ahead of the curve but building one mindful of the planet and its people, albeit in today’s world a counterintuitive objective for an apparel company by the fact that we don’t need to produce more clothes, period..
3. Essentialism by Greg McKeown which is helps elucidate the way in which we can (and must) do the essential, deeming everything else trivial. It’s about removing the idea of productivity especially as it may lack real value.
4. And finally I’ll mention Dare to Lead, by Brene Brown which is an actionable book on how to show up as a leader with vulnerability and core values at the heart of how a business is managed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.biskutbar.com
• Instagram: @biskutbar
• Facebook: @biskutbar
• Twitter: @findingchandani

Image Credits
All images were taken by Chandani Kohli @findingchandani of @biskutbar