June 4, 2025

5 Coffee and Confectionery Founders Transforming India's Food Culture | The Hub Bengaluru

From Bean to Behavior: India's Taste Revolution

The future of food isn't just about what we eat—it's about how we think about flavor, origin, and experience. The Hub Spotlight brings you the stories of entrepreneurs who understand that building a food brand today means reshaping entire categories and consumer behaviors.

This week's spotlight is steeped in caffeine and confectionery, but wired on intent. These five founders aren't just building brands, they're brewing new behaviors, one bold sip at a time. From no-fuss filter roasts to dessert that deconstructs itself, here's how India's lifestyle taste-makers are flavoring the future.

Meet India's Flavor Revolutionaries

Rewriting Coffee Maps: Advith Shetty

☕ "Our beans speak two languages: Indian soul, Italian precision." Advith Shetty isn't roasting coffee with Seven Beans Coffee Company, he's rewriting colonial taste maps. What sets Advith apart is his vision to create authentic Indian coffee culture that honors both heritage and craft. At Seven Beans, the origin story spans Chikmagalur plantations and Modena roasteries, uniting Indian growers with Italian artisans. The result? A bean with body, balance, and a backstory that challenges how we think about coffee provenance. His approach proves that authenticity doesn't mean isolation—it means thoughtful collaboration. Heritage meets high-craft, no gatekeepers allowed.

Building Coffee Movement: Matt Chitharanjan

🍃 "Transparency is our flavor profile." Matt Chitharanjan didn't just launch a coffee brand with Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, he built India's first coffee movement. Blue Tokai turned sourcing into storytelling and made washed Arabicas part of your everyday vocab. Single estate? Always. Over-roasted bitterness? Never. From barista-led content to farm-level traceability, Matt made third wave our wave. His strategy shows how education and transparency can transform commodity products into specialty experiences.

Farming for the Future: Ashish D'abreo

🌾 "Good food starts with good politics." Ashish D'abreo went from café circuits to regenerative agriculture with Goodfarmer Foods. He's making climate-conscious staples cool, minus the greenwashing. Think supply chains without exploitation, snacks without synthetics, and food that respects both farmer and flavor. This isn't a pivot. It's a palate with purpose. His work demonstrates how food businesses can drive environmental and social change without compromising on taste.

Bottling Convenience: Chaitanya Chitta

🚀 "Cold coffee is not an afterthought. It's a category." Chaitanya Chitta's thesis? Urban India doesn't need a café, it needs cold coffee that shows up at your door like Netflix. With DropKaffe, he bottled the iced latte lifestyle before it went mainstream. Built on tech, taste, and behavioral cues, this brand doesn't just sell drinks. It sells on-demand indulgence. Low-foam, high-convenience. His innovation shows how understanding consumer behavior can create entirely new product categories.

Crafting Slow Luxury: Swati Upadhyay

🍰 "Luxury isn't loud. It melts slowly." Swati Upadhyay's pastry empire at Conçu is built on restraint. She ditches fondant frills for finesse. French patisserie, Indian ingredients, and quiet confidence. Her cakes don't scream celebration, they whisper occasion. In a market of sugar overloads, Swati's serving slow decadence with design discipline. Her approach proves that luxury in food comes from craftsmanship, not complexity.

Brewing Behaviors, Not Just Beverages

What connects these five taste revolutionaries isn't just their product quality—it's their understanding that food businesses today are really behavior businesses. Whether it's challenging colonial coffee narratives, building transparency movements, championing regenerative agriculture, creating convenience categories, or redefining dessert luxury, each founder is reshaping how India thinks about taste, origin, and experience.

The Hub Spotlight series is more than just profiles – it's a celebration of innovators who are reshaping India's food culture. Have someone in mind for our next spotlight? Drop us a message – we're always looking for taste-makers who deserve their story told.