Empowering Communities and Making Cheese in Himalayas with Nitin Dayalu [#TBS Eps 6]
Traveler, Cheese maker and Rural Entrepreneur Nitin Dayalu talks about finding his love for cheese making, handling failure as an entrepreneur, building old hills artisans food and his vision of empowering rural communities in Himalayas
In 2012, Nitin Dayalu, a Banker, quit his 11 years long corporate career, put all his savings together and set out to travel. His purpose? To find a purpose. To break free from the constrained life of cubicles, find something that he would love doing and pursue his vision of empowering communities. And he did! During his two years travel across India and Africa, Nitin fell in love with cheese making. In 2013, he moved to Mukteshwar in uttarakand to set up a hand made cheese making unit. The unit crashed and Nitin shut shop in one years. Not the one to give up, Nitin gave it another shot and set up The Old hill Foods with a fellow entrepreneur Chetan Mahajan.
The Old hill Foods has seen an exponential demand from the consumers and also empowered farming communities in Mukteshwar.
In this Episode, Nitin talks in depth on the following
1. What is Artisans food?
2. How Nitin found cheese making and why he chose to pursue it
3. Convincing his family of his unconventional dreams
4. Starting and shutting his 1st unit
5. Lessons learnt from failure and trying again.
6. How he convinced the locals to work with him
7. Finding his 1st few clients and getting feedback
8. Cost involved in setting up a cheese making unit
9. What are the different ways in which people can earn a living in the hills
10. How Nitin’s work empowered the communities in his surrounding
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Links Related to Nitin Dayalu
1. nitindayalu@gmail.com
Resources mentioned in the episode
1. La Ferme – A cheese making unit in Auroville, Pondicherry
2. Sitla, A place near Mukteshwar in Uttarakand, where a lot of people from cities and urban areas have moved to