Baichung Bhutia-Backed NE Origins Wants To Spread The Taste Of Northeast Globally

Spreading northeast-flavours to every kitchen of the world while empowering local businesses of the region

Serial entrepreneur Rewaj Chettri started working on his passion project in the thick of the pandemic to help local producers sell their food products through his digital commerce platform. These were mostly condiments, spices and beverages – traditional food supplements, to be precise. In the beginning, it was all about reaching out to the remote parts of the northeast to ensure that businesses would continue to function despite a supply chain disruption due to Covid lockdowns. But soon, it became a larger mission of representing the region’s indigenous flavours to the rest of the world.

In two years and a half, the ecommerce marketplace has onboarded more than 250 vendors and brought consumers a wide range of authentic NE foods. To scale up further, Chettri relaunched the platform in October 2022, standardised products and their packaging, and enabled seamless customer engagement. The platform has sold more than 20K F&B products and serviced 15K+ customers. NE Origins clocked INR 45 Lakh in revenue in FY22.

Unlike other digital commerce companies operating from Tier 1 cities, this D2C brand is headquartered in Sikkim’s state capital to stay close to its roots. It acts as a tech enabler to empower NE businesses and helps them reach global markets without leaving the land. “We aim to bridge the gap between NE food and the rest of the world,” said Chettri.

NE Origins will continue to promote natural and organic food products. It will expand its market reach in 2023 through an offline presence in major Indian cities and add more products and categories. The D2C brand plans to tap international markets by 2026 and wants to be recognised as the go-to marketplace for indigenous F&B products from India. It also aims to venture into premium personal care space and traditional loom products.