Brands
Marico buys majority stake in breakfast and snacks brand True Elements
Mumbai: Marico Limited has announced a strategic investment in HW Wellness Solutions Private Limited with an acquisition of a 54 per cent equity stake through primary infusion and secondary buyouts.
Co-founded by Puru Gupta and Sreejith Moolayil, HW Wellness Solutions Private Limited owns True Elements, a clean label, digital-first brand playing in the rapidly growing healthy breakfast and snacks segment in India.
True Elements is India’s only food brand to be recognized as both clean label and 100 percent wholegrain. It is anchored on providing food that does not lie to you and promises zero percent preservatives, zero percent chemicals and zero percent added sugar in its offerings. It offers a wide range of over 70 products spanning across categories of western breakfast such as oats, quinoa, muesli, granola, flakes, and Indian breakfast such as poha, upma, dosa, snacks such as roasted seeds, seed mixes, raw seeds amongst others.
Available on over ninety online platforms and in over twelve thousand retail outlets, True Elements currently garners the majority of its business through online marketplaces and plans to significantly ramp up its offline presence over the next few years.
Commenting on this step, Marico Limited managing director and CEO Saugata Gupta said, “True Elements is another step towards expanding our total addressable market in the healthy foods segment. We believe the ethos of the brand complements the purpose that drives Marico. The exciting range of products bring to life the rare and virtuous blend of quality, taste and health at the right price. This adds another digital-first brand in our portfolio, which not only has a distinct proposition but also exhibits strong fundamentals along with a growing digital and offline presence.”
Speaking of Marico’s investment in True Elements, HW Wellness Solutions CEO and co-founder Puru Gupta said, “We are delighted to have entered a strategic partnership with Marico. As a brand, True Elements has always focused on staying ‘True’ across all its touchpoints – including Purpose, People, Product and Planet, and we are glad to have found a partner who echoes this way of thinking. True Elements built its first phase of growth behind a portfolio of innovative Clean Food and building high consumer trust- while we continue to push the bar on those, our next phase will be focused on long term brand building and accelerating our entry into newer households.”
Adding to it, HR Wellness Solutions COO and co-founder Sreejith Moolayil said, “In addition to value systems, we see strong synergies with Marico in terms of our aspirations for the brand and are confident that this partnership will only make our promise of providing clean, healthy & no nonsense food much stronger.”
Brands
Uidai partners with Google to help users locate Aadhaar centres
Verified Aadhaar centres to appear on Maps with services and access info
MUMBAI: Finding an Aadhaar centre may soon be as easy as finding your favourite café. In a move aimed at making public services more accessible, the Unique Identification Authority of India has partnered with Google to display authorised Aadhaar centres on Google Maps. The feature, expected to roll out in the coming months, will allow residents to locate verified centres quickly and confidently.
More than 60,000 Aadhaar centres, including state of the art Aadhaar Seva Kendras, will be mapped. When users search on Google Maps, they will be directed to authorised facilities rather than unverified listings, helping curb misinformation and confusion.
The listings will do more than drop a pin. Users will be able to see the nature of services offered at each centre, whether it is adult enrolment, child enrolment, or limited to address and mobile number updates. Details such as operating hours, parking availability and divyang friendly infrastructure will also be shown wherever applicable.
Uidai CEO Bhuvnesh Kumar, said the collaboration is part of the authority’s continued effort to improve ease of living for Aadhaar holders by making authorised centres simpler and faster to navigate.
The partnership will deepen in its next phase, with Uidai using Google Business Profile to manage information and respond directly to public feedback. Looking ahead, the two organisations are also exploring the option of enabling appointment bookings through the Google Maps interface, potentially allowing residents to plan their visits with greater efficiency.
Google India country head, strategic partnerships Roli Agarwal, said integrating verified Aadhaar centres would help millions access trusted services with confidence, bringing essential government infrastructure closer to the people who need it most.
If all goes to plan, a routine Aadhaar update may soon begin not with a queue, but with a search bar.
