I love idlis and dosas.

In school, we used to share tiffin, and I would always have my eyes on my south indian friend’s tiffin. At home, I would tell my mom to make dosas. She would. Soaking rice and dal in the morning and after dinner, grinding, and keeping the batter well covered for the night.   But it was a lot of preparation and effort for her. So, I asked her very occasionally to make dosas and, in parallel, continued digging into my friend’s lunchbox.

But the world of dosas has significantly changed in the last 20 years.

So, as you would’ve read in the title, today, we’re going deep into the workings of a front-runner who is making the homemaker’s life easy by creating a category around fresh idli-dosa batter.

Here’s what we will cover in our analysis

Table of Contents

• How iD started?

• iD’s Better Batter: Product, Packaging, and Proces …

  • #1: Product: Refining one at a time

  • #2: Packaging: Standing out by Standing up

    • Your vada, your way da!

  • #3: Process

• iD’s GTM Strategy

  • Offline-first Distribution

  • Building Trust

  • Beachhead Strategy: No Cold Chain, No Entry

  • Print and Youtube Ads

How iD started?

PC Musthafa didn’t grow up eating three meals every day.

His father was a coolie in Kerala’s Wayanad district. Money was tight. Meals were simple. He failed in Class 6 and nearly dropped out to support his family financially.

But his father pushed him back into school. Musthafa studied harder and zeroed in on the one subject he loved, maths (thanks to his maths teacher). That moment changed the trajectory of his life. He earned a seat at NIT Calicut and later got a job in Dubai as a software engineer. Life was comfortable. The kind of life where you don’t think about batter unless you absolutely have to.

Then one day in 2005,  his cousin, who ran a tiny grocery store in Bengaluru’s Tippasandra area, called him and asked:
“What if we made and sold idli-dosa batter in packets?”

It didn’t interest him in the beginning, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.

Bengaluru’s urban kitchens were shifting. Dual-income households wanted fresh food but didn’t have the time. The batter in the market was sourced from different vendors and it came in transparent plastic pouches with rubber bands. Unsurprisingly, there were many complaints about hygiene and quality. 

So, Musthafa and his cousins tried their hands at building their own batter. And hence ID Fresh was born. They pooled ₹50,000, rented a 550 sq. ft. kitchen. To begin with, they bought a mixer-grinder, a weighing and a sealing machine. Musthafa himself went to Kirana stores to pitch preservative-free batter and started delivered them on a scooty. After 9 months of grinding, Musthafa and his cousins started selling 100 packets a day.

What began as a humble experiment is now a brand that reaches over 45 cities across India and international markets. And Musthafa PC, he boy who rarely had idlis for breakfast has earned a nickname in startup circles: The Breakfast King of India.

Sidebar

What do we learn from this?

iD didn’t invent something new. They simply formalized an invisible pain that no one else took seriously.

It’s the same playbook used by:

• Tata Salt: standardized an unbranded essential by offering consistency, purity, and trust.

• Wakefit: turned mattress buying from shady corner stores into a high-trust online experience.

iD shows us that some of India’s most scalable ideas lie not in disruption, but in dignifying the boring. Making the everyday better.

iD’s Better Batter: Product, Packaging, and Process

Majority of the supermarkets and 10-minute delivery apps in Bengaluru carry two brands: iD and Asal. I asked a grocery store owner in HSR why they don’t stock any other brand.

“Customers only want it, sir. We have placed some other brands also. They don’t move. And we’ve been selling iD for 5 years now. No customer complaints.”

On asking about Asal, he said. “Asal is also good. Some want iD. Some want Asal”.

Clearly, iD has built a loyal consumer base. But the shelf space is dominated by iD. So, let’s go into three moats that differentiate iD from the rest 

#1: Product: Refining one at a time

Batter isn’t new. For South Indian families, it’s been made at home for generations. The real challenge for iD wasn’t creating batter—it was recreating that same fluffiness in idlis and crispiness in dosas that mothers and grandmothers perfected by instinct. And then figuring out how to scale it.

One big reason people avoided store-bought batter? Preservatives. You hate it. I hate it.

iD spent years developing a batter that:

• Has no preservatives, no soda

• Stays fresh for 7–10 days

• Survives cold-chain transport, and still

• Tastes like your grandmother made it

The team obsessed over the basics: sourcing the right (and not-so-secret) ingredients(rice, urad dal, fenugreek), soaking them in just the right amount of water, and grinding them to a precise, replicable consistency.

But not every product was a hit.

Take chutney, for instance. iD tried launching tomato and coriander chutneys, but they bombed. At a roadside stall in Bengaluru, you get idlis and dosas for 40-50 rupees. You don’t pay for chutney. It comes complementary. iD tried to sell chutney for 25 rupees, and it didn’t sit well with the buyers. It didn’t fail on quality, it failed on changing perception.

That insight shaped ID’s psyche for future product bets. They looked for items that were time-intensive to make at home, where consumers would willingly pay for convenience without compromising on authenticity.

That’s where vadas and filter coffee came in. Brewing traditional South Indian filter coffee isn’t quick. It requires overnight setup and careful decoction. iD’s filter coffee product offered the same homemade strong coffee in a ready-to-use liquid form. 

This approach to product creation defines the rest of their range. From paneer to parottas to curd, every new product passes a simple test: Is it pure? Is it needed? Does it save time? And is it close to homemade?

Pretty cool stuff!

#2: Packaging: Standing out by Standing up

When iD started, they used to sell batter in a pillow pouch. You had to open it and transfer the batter into a utensil before you use it. The design stayed the same for the first 9 years. Then they unveiled their super convenient boat-shaped packaging, which continues to date. This was when their #1 competitor, Asal, was two years old. The design eliminated the need to transfer the batter into a utensil (one less utensil to wash), and sat comfortably in the fridge, without tipping over. A zip-lock sat on top that kept the batter fresh.

But packaging, if unique, is prone to copying. So, iD patented the design.

And that’s not the only design they patented. Next came the vadas.

Your vada, your way da!

Good-looking vadas are operationally challenging to make at home. Even if you go restaurants in Bengaluru, 4 out of 5 will not have vadas will not have a round-round signature hole in the center. It’s a skill difficult to master. iD developed a patented “squeeze-and-fry” vada batter with a unique nozzle design that can easily make consistent, round vadas at home.

Over time, they added another layer to this packaging, allowing customers to add their own ingredients to the vada batter. 

Most food brands look at packaging as a cost center. iD looked at packaging as a way to subtract friction.

#3: Process

Fresh food is prone to wastage. Most brands avoid it for that reason.

It’s why giants like ITC entered ready-to-eat before they touched ready-to-cook. Shelf life gives stability and room to scale better.

The industry norm for wastage is around 10%-20%. But that’s not the case with iD.

iD operates in over 45 cities, retails across 40,000+ stores, and has an international presence in countries like the UAE and the US. Around 71% of their distribution happens offline. And yet, their product wastage sits at just 2%

How?

Because of 2 reasons:

#1. Batters, although a part of ready-to-cook food, have a nuance.

Let me explain it with an example.

The batter-making journey typically has five steps:
Washing → Soaking → Grinding → Mixing → Fermentation → Packaging

Most companies would do all of this in a central factory and ship the finished product.

But iD flips the last two.

So, say they have a factory in Kochi and they are supplying in Bangalore (530 kms). Here’s what they do: They complete the first four steps in Bengaluru—right up to mixing. Then they load the semi-processed batter into cold-storage trucks. The final step, fermentation, happens en route, inside the truck, while it travels overnight to Bengaluru.

The truck maintains a precise 4–5°C, allowing fermentation to occur in a controlled, predictable environment. By the time it reaches store shelves in Bengaluru the next morning, the batter is freshly fermented.

#2. Cracking everything that FMCG companies do great with patience

iD cracked fresh food logistics using a zero-inventory, daily-replenishment model. That means they produce fresh batter, dispatch it the same day, and never store anything overnight. The batter you see in stores was made that morning.

And to support this, a layer of serious ops tech:

• AI and machine learning to forecast demand and optimize production

• Store-level geotagging to route deliveries efficiently

• Real-time dashboards that track everything from delivery delays to product freshness

That’s how ID turned a perishable product into a scalable one.

Okay, so a product people trust, packaging they remember, and a process that scales, altogether build a defensible moat for iD.  But moats don’t matter if no one knows you exist. So, how did they take batter from a Bengaluru kitchen to 45 cities and counting? 👇

iD’s GTM Strategy

In this section, we’ll unpack four GTM strategies that helped iD go from a single kitchen to a ₹2,200 crore brand: offline-first distribution, trust as currency, beachhead expansion, and low-cost, high-impact storytelling.

Offline-first Distribution

When iD Fresh started scaling, there were no 10-minute delivery apps.
Amazon was still selling books and USB sticks. The offline market was the only market, and mom and pop stores got their products by the distributor’s morning milk run.

So, they did what any other food manufacturing company did. They doubled down on visibility at Kirana store fridges. But as volumes grew from one store to hundreds, they started building their internal last-mile supply chain piece by piece.

As trust grew, their batter stood tall (literally, thanks to the patented standing pouch) and they improved their distribution system efficiency. 

Over time, as the startup ecosystem matured, iD found its way onto the upcoming channels like Bigbasket and BlinkIt also. 

Even today, 71% of their business comes from offline stores. 

Building Trust

In food, Trust comes first. Convenience, Branding - everything second (that’s why we’ve ads like maa ka bharosa, ghar jaisa khana, and so on)

You see, you can’t sell freshness with discounts. You can’t growth-hack shelf life. And one bad experience can lose you a household forever.

iD knew this from the start. That’s why they didn’t rely on bold television claims, they relied on consistency.

Same taste. Same texture. Every time.
That’s what builds habit. And habit, over time, builds trust.

But they did something more to accelerate trust-building: something built on a small human psychology thing called reciprocation.

Trust shops

In 2016, iD Fresh Foods introduced an unconventional retail model: the iD Trust Shop. These were unmanned kiosks placed in residential complexes and corporate parks, stocked with their products. There were no sales personnel, no surveillance cameras - just batter, a QR code, and a cash box. Customers could pick up products and pay at their convenience. 

This model was not just about sales; it was a statement of faith in the consumer. The idea was simple: trust the customer first, and they will reciprocate. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with 97% collection rates. In some cases, customers even paid more than the product price.

Instead of opening retail stores or pouring money into media, iD tried something bold and bizarre:
They set up unmanned self-serve kiosks in apartment complexes—stocked with batter, a QR code, and a cash drop box.

Trust Shop 2.0: Scaling Trust During Crisis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, iD Fresh Foods scaled this model with Trust Shop 2.0. They deployed vans stocked with products to 27 residential areas, allowing contactless pickup. Payments were made digitally, and the entire operation was based on the honor system. This initiative not only ensured uninterrupted supply during lockdowns but also reinforced the brand's commitment to trust and community support.

Beachhead Strategy: No Cold Chain, No Entry

Patience is the ethos of iD. They had a proven PMF. They could’ve thrown money on the problem and scaled fast. But they consciously chose a steady, sturdier route.

Before going to any city, they answered one core question: Can we deliver fresh, every day, without failing?

So, iD took the beachhead strategy approach (Go deeper into this strategy here)

They’d pick one city. One cluster. One supply chain that could guarantee daily replenishment. Only after proving product-market fit in that micro-market would they expand to the next neighborhood, the next route, or the next metro.

This might sound obvious in hindsight, but in 2010s India, it was rare.

VCs wanted national rollouts. Brands chased a “pan-India” scale. iD played a different game—controlled geography with deep penetration.

Print and Youtube Ads

iD’s advertisement has the trust-first essence in it. Unlike other fmcg brands, iD doesn’t do celebrity endorsements or sponsor cricket tournaments. Their ads are more family-focused, and tell a story that feels like a conversation you can take part into.

Their print Ad on World Idli Day urged users to “skip ad” and join Musthafa in a live factory tour

Here’s another out-of-the-box filter coffee ad from iD. The ad smartly nudges you to rotate the paper, mimicking the coffee-pouring action. For a south indian, the design is bound to bring pure joy in the morning.

That’s it on ID Fresh foods from my side!

PS: Other random, interesting highlights of my last week

1. A reel I laughed a lot at: here

2. Tote bags are in. But you have to get the tote bag etiquette right. I saw this old humor piece on New Yorker that’s subtle and funny: Link

3. Thoughts for the week: “We assume that the more arguments we give, the better our case. In reality, our weakest arguments dilute the strongest. Generally, you’ll only be as convincing as your worst point, so instead of making as many arguments as you can, make only the best." - Gurwinder Bhogal

Until next time!

Saurabh 👋