Holland Bakery and Snacks: Combining health with culinary traditions

Holland Bakery and Snacks has become a quite popular name among bakery lovers in Mumbai within a small span of time. Born amid the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, Holland Bakery is attracting customers because of its innovative and healthy products. The bakery has introduced multigrain Khari sticks for the first time in Mumbai and it’s become a hit. The Khari sticks are topped with roasted seeds and are available in Cream and Onion, Whole-wheat and Peri Peri flavors. Apart from the cakes, the bakery also offers a wide range of toasts and cookies making it one of the favorite outlets offering teatime snacks.  

The toasts are available in different kinds like crispy rusk toast, herb toast, garlic toast, wholewheat toast and kaju toast. The range of cookies includes red velvet cookies, ragi cookies, coconut crunch, kesar pista and nankhatai among others.

Holland Bakery has introduced a unique product called frozen roti, which can be kept in the freezer for one year.

“We make multigrain with 6 varieties of seeds. We have brought in different kinds of cookies. 

We have a new innovation called frozen roti. You can keep them in the freezer for one year and eat them anytime. It's difficult to prepare fresh roti every day. These rotis are convenient as well as healthy. ,” says Abhishek Dalvi, CEO, Holland Bakery and Snacks. 

While it’s difficult to find healthy options in bakery and snacks items, Holland Bakery comes as a good option for the health conscious. 

“We offer healthy food items in the bakery, snacks and frozen food segment by using our vacuum freezing technology. We not only provide healthy food but also try to make the food rich in taste. We use the vacuum freezing technology in the recipe to keep the nutrition intact in bread and snacks,” says Abhishek.  

The new entrant in the bakery and healthy snack segment in Mumbai has reached a turnover of Rs 4-4.5 crore within two years of its launch. However, it was not easy to enter the market amid the Covid-19 lockdown.

“We started planning well before the outbreak of Covid-19. We faced many difficulties in setting up the business due to the restrictions on travelling and transporting of goods during the lockdown. We started the journey in June 2020. We bootstrapped and also took loans to set up the startup. We have already invested Rs 7-8 crore,” says Abhishek.   

Holland Bakery combines the best of European Baking standards and practices with the culinary traditions of India to offer unique products for customers. Holland Bakery aims to procure the best ingredients directly from the farmers to offer healthier options to its customers.

“We observe that the bakery industries follow age-old recipes in making food items. Then we did thorough research on how we can present the bakery, snacks and frozen items in a healthy condition to the consumers. Our other objective is to create a bridge between the farmers and the consumers,” adds Abhishek.

The products of Holland Bakery are also available at major retail outlets like Tata star Bazaar in Mumbai and Pune as well as at 150 shops of Wellness Forever. Frozen roti of Holland Bakery is also available on Big Basket and it will soon get delivered through Swiggy Instamart and Blinkit. Reliance has also shown interest in this product. 

Holland Bakery and Snacks is one of the 20 startups selected for mentorship under the Mentors of Global Bharat program, an initiative by TV9 Bharatvarsh and SAP  to offer guidance and support to budding entrepreneurs.

“Mentors are very important as they can share their experiences which can help us overcome the challenges. We are facing huge competition as there are already several big brands in this field. We want mentorship to grow our business despite being a startup. We are also seeking advice on raising funds and investments,” expects Abhishek.