Veeba: a failed restaurant chain became an INR 1,000 Cr sauces business (interview)

Speaking at Inc42's D2C Summit (August 2024), Veeba Foods founder and MD Viraj Bahl recounted how his restaurant business, Pocketful, shut down after three years in 2013 — and how that failure surfaced a white space in India's condiments and sauce market that the company then built on.

Founded in 2013, Veeba started as a B2B supplier of condiments to QSR chains like Domino's before venturing into retail. Following the retail entrance it gained consumer favour and, by Bahl's account, scaled to INR 1,000 crore in revenue for FY24. He attributed the customer love to adding an Indian touch to western sauces like Chipotle, and to building a solely Indianised sauce company.

Bahl was explicit about crediting the failure: 'If I cannot take the credit for the complete failure of the restaurant business, I cannot take the complete credit for the success of the sauce business.' He also said he delegates deeply — 'each CXO is better than me in their verticals' — and stays vigilant against newer homegrown rivals like Wingreen, MasterChow and Gusto Chef, plus incumbents such as Unilever, Mondelez and Kissan.

Veeba crossed INR 1,000 crore revenue in FY24 (self-reported), with customers nationwide — the largest base in Delhi, Maharashtra and the South.

The failure was diagnostic: the same effort that lost money in restaurants found a structural gap — India had no homegrown western-sauce champion.

B2B first de-risked the pivot: supplying QSR chains like Domino's built volume and cash flow before consumer retail was attempted.

Product differentiation was cultural, not just category: Indianising western sauces gave Veeba a taste moat against Kissan, Unilever and Mondelez.

Founder humility is structural: Bahl says every CXO outclasses him in their vertical, which let the company scale past a founder-run ceiling.

A failed business can be paid market research: the founder who reads failure as demand data rather than verdict pivots into the white space the failure exposed.

As of the August 2024 summit, Veeba claimed revenue above INR 1,000 crore for FY24 with a nationwide consumer base, while newer brands (Wingreen, MasterChow, Gusto Chef) attacked the category it created. Inc42 Plus put the broader online FMCG market on track to reach $25 billion by 2025, with packaged food the largest category.