In Lucknow, a quiet experiment is under way in the most ordinary place imaginable: the daily roti. It looks the same, tastes the same, and cooks the same — but the wheat inside it carries up to twice the iron and zinc of ordinary grain. That is the promise of Better Nutrition, the company that calls itself India’s first biofortified food brand, and the science behind it starts long before the grain ever reaches a mill.
Better Nutrition’s biofortified whole wheat atta, with up to 2X zinc and iron. (Image: Better Nutrition)
Nutrition grown in, not added on
Biofortification works at the farm, not in the factory. Instead of adding vitamins and minerals to flour after milling, Better Nutrition grows the nutrition into the crop itself, using naturally nutrient-rich seed varieties and better soil health. The company says nothing artificial is added at any stage: the grain is non-GMO, and traditional stone milling preserves the nutrients that high-speed mills destroy.
The method is the company’s patent-pending TriNutrimax Protocol, a three-step field routine: seed priming for a micro-nutrient boost, soil enrichment so roots absorb more of what is there, and foliar sprays during the vegetative stage to keep the plant healthy through the season. Every batch is then checked with X-ray fluorescence (XRF) testing before the company buys it — screened for more than 20 nutrients, more than 10 heavy metals, and over 270 pesticides. Only batches that pass the tests ship. The company also feeds soil tests, weather patterns, crop yields and XRF results into AI models that predict where micronutrient gaps will appear, so the protocol keeps improving field by field.
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Biofortified wheat growing in the field. (Image: Better Nutrition)
From 24,000 farms to the quick-commerce shelf
Better Nutrition is the consumer brand of Lucknow-based Greenday Farmer Solutions, founded in 2017 by Prateek Rastogi and Aishwarya Bhatnagar. Greenday supplies biofortified seeds to farmers and buys back their harvests, and the company says its network now spans more than 24,000 farmers, who earn better prices for their nutrient-rich crops. The range covers everyday staples — whole wheat atta, Sonamoti atta, Sona Masoori rice, Kalanamak rice, stone-ground ragi atta, dals and millets — and it is sold through Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Amazon and BigBasket, as well as the company’s own website. The company says it was the first biofortified staple brand on Blinkit, and that more than 2.5 lakh families now buy its products. The brand first reached a national audience on Shark Tank India Season 4.
A famous farm joins in
The newest chapter is playing out on one of India’s best-known family farms. Actor and author Soha Ali Khan has joined Better Nutrition as brand ambassador and investor, and has brought biofortified farming to the Pataudi family farms in Haryana: in the first phase, biofortified wheat has been planted across nearly 45 acres this rabi season, sown in November 2026 and due to be harvested in April 2027, with the grain going into the company’s atta range. The plan extends to rice from the coming kharif season, and the brand is also working with farmers in neighbouring villages, offering agronomy guidance, nutrient testing and an assured buyback.
She follows actor Varun Dhawan, who invested in the company and joined as brand ambassador in October 2026 and is turning his own farm into a biofortified one, and badminton champion P. V. Sindhu, who is also an ambassador for the brand. On Children’s Day, 14 November 2026, the three came together with chef Pankaj Bhadouria, the brand’s culinary advisor, in a campaign explaining biofortification to children — that the iron and zinc in their roti, rice and dal can be grown right into the food they eat every day.
Why it matters
The company frames the work around a problem hiding in plain sight. It says more than half of India’s soil nutrient density has been lost since the Green Revolution chased yield above all else, and that more than 70% of Indian women and children face micronutrient deficiency, with India ranking among the bottom five countries globally for iron and zinc — despite having enough calories. Biofortified varieties, the company says, carry twice the iron and zinc density of conventional grain. The fix it proposes is deliberately unglamorous: no new pill, no supplement, no change to a single recipe — just better seeds, better soil, and a test at the farm gate, so the food India already eats every day quietly carries more of what its people are missing.
Keep reading: The Fridge-Sized Farm That Needs No Sunlight or Soil: Inside X Boson AI’s CAAX · The Sensor in the Paddy Field: Inside Revin Krishi, the IIT Palakkad Startup Turning Farm Data Into Bigger Harvests · More Food Processing & Agri-Tech stories
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