India’s spice story is undergoing a quiet but significant transformation, and at the forefront is a bold challenger brand, ZOFF Foods. While India remains the world’s largest producer and consumer of spices, insiders like Akash Agrawalla, Co-Founder of ZOFF, argue that what most Indian consumers believe about “fresh spices” is far from reality.

In a recent LinkedIn post, Agrawalla peeled back the lid on a system he calls “rigged by design,” where spices are often hoarded, prices artificially inflated, and freshness sacrificed for market speculation. This narrative has resonated across the supply chain, from kitchens to kirana stores.

The Hoarding Game No One Talks About

India’s spice markets from Andhra’s cold storages stuffed with red chillies, to Nizamabad’s turmeric warehouses, and Unjha’s jeera (cumin) auctions, reveal a troubling pattern. Traders often delay releasing their inventory not to meet demand, but to manipulate price surges, sometimes up to 50%, as Agrawalla points out.

“It’s not about quality or crop yield anymore. It’s about control over inventory, timing, and narrative,” he wrote.

This speculative behavior disrupts farmer incomes, consumer pricing, and most critically, the authenticity of spice freshness, the very element that should define this ancient industry.

From Steel to Spice: A New-Age Founder’s Journey

What makes ZOFF’s story unique is its non-traditional genesis. Akash Agrawalla and his brother Anurag pivoted from their family’s steel business to build ZOFF (Zone of Fresh Foods) in Raipur. “We weren’t from the FMCG world. But we knew the Indian kitchen. We knew what spices should taste like,” said Agrawalla in a recent interview with Adgully.

From the outset, ZOFF refused to play by legacy rules. Instead of joining the cartel of middlemen, the brand invested in farm-level sourcing, cryogenic cold grinding, and rapid packaging to preserve aroma and essential oils techniques rarely adopted by traditional players.

Reframing the Spice Narrative

ZOFF’s vision is rooted in a simple but powerful idea: “Asli Khushbu, Asli Swaad” (authentic aroma, authentic taste). Its execution, however, is anything but simple. The company:

• Bypasses speculative stockists, buying directly from trusted farm clusters.
• Uses cold grinding technology that retains up to 95% of natural oils compared to 50–60% in heat-based grinding.
• Maintains zero contamination packaging standards in a fully automated facility.

Even their packaging minimalist, transparent, and QR-code enabled mirrors the brand’s promise of traceability and freshness.

The Shilpa Shetty Boost: Mainstreaming a Movement

In early 2025, ZOFF launched the ‘Khadey Masale Matlab ZOFF’ campaign featuring Bollywood wellness icon Shilpa Shetty, positioning the brand as a confluence of tradition, health, and modern values. “ZOFF is not just a spice brand. It’s a mindset about purity,” said Shetty, emphasizing the need for clean-label food in Indian households.

The campaign created ripples on all digital platforms, reaching out to India’s increasing pool of health-oriented, label-sensitive consumers. With Shetty’s reputation in the wellness domain, ZOFF issued a loud message: it’s not merely marketing spices it’s restoring culinary integrity.

Funding, Expansion, and Future Vision

ZOFF’s growth hasn’t gone unnoticed. The brand recently secured Series A funding from JM Financial. It plans to expand its product portfolio, strengthen its D2C footprint, and enter global markets starting with the Indian diaspora in the U.S. and the Middle East.

A Spicy Rebellion Against an Old Order

For decades, India’s spice industry operated in the shadows of opacity. Brands like ZOFF are changing that by using technology, transparency, and cultural pride to reimagine how spices are sourced, processed, and perceived.

Their message is sharp, almost activist in tone: India deserves better than a spice trade run like a stock exchange. It deserves food rooted in trust, not timing.

And as ZOFF proves, sometimes the boldest innovations come not from Silicon Valley or Bengaluru but from a small spice lab in Raipur, where the grind is cold and the ambition is hot.

Also Read: The Startup Fixing India’s Broken Food Supply Chain