Dear Friends,
Welcome to the Oct 2026 WIN Newsletter.
The world has become an uncertain place in last few years due to complex geopolitics playing havoc with economies. While India has done well to weather these challenges to show a healthy economic growth, these headwinds do affect many sectors. At times like this, it will be innovation and nimbleness of our enterprises, including the startups in varied areas, which will lay the bedrock of future growth.
The latest National Family Health Survey has mixed message. Steady improvements, but still significant nutritional deficiencies, leading to continued high stunting in many states, as well higher obesity in many sections of the society. The anaemia numbers are now being studies under a separate study by ICMR.
The modern economic system, agriculture systems and modern lifestyles create both serious challenges and strong opportunities for long term nutrition security of our families, society and country. On the negative side, the lower agriculture diversity, coupled with junk food products, have led to poor diet habits in last few decades. On the positive side, over last 5-7 years, the rapidly growing awareness of need for healthy food across all sections of society, increasing availability of healthy ingredients across the country due to better logistics and increasing number of progressive farmers, lead to opportunity to create a self-sustaining market oriented nutrition revival.
Across India, a new generation of food products entrepreneurs are turning locally available, nutrient-rich ingredients — millets, pulses, fruits, vegetables, traditional foods — into products and businesses, through better processing, packaging, marketing and technology. Entreprises are creating value at every stage of the food system: linking farmers to markets, innovators to communities, and nutritious food to consumers, while generating income and strengthening local economies. Supporting them is growing food equipment industry, which provides solutions at varying levels of volume, complexity and costs, allowing small enterprises to use them as they scale up.
The Science in Action section in this issue brings the importance of these enterprises, and the challenges they face. We bring glimpses of many such enterprises. One such enterprise, winner of the WIN Foundation award at the recent National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC) brings forth the dynamism and innovation of such enterprises. Considering our vast culinary diversity, nutrition needs, specific health challenges, we need to multiply such nutrition oriented food enterprises with a supporting ecosystem for product development, testing, market validation trials, and scale up.
The issue also covers update on other projects, including the very well received National and State level School Nutri-garden competition, 3D water Modeling project.
We look forward to your comments and suggestions, including any ideas for collaboration. Do write to info@winfoundations.org.
With warm regards and Jai Hind
Paresh Vora
Director - India Operations
