When the contenders in the Woman Ahead category were whittled down after the initial round, two contenders building consumer brands emerged as the top choices. It was a close fight between Vineeta Singh, founder of cosmetic brand Sugar, and Anju Srivastava of Wingreens. Both are building businesses that have gained traction, especially over the past year, the jury pointed out.

What sealed the deal for Srivastava was that her company’s backend model helped generate jobs for women and had a social aspect. “Wingreens is a harder act to implement because it sources from farmers, it’s trying to create impact and therefore is doing a tougher job,” one of the jury members noted. The sentiment was mirrored across the panel. In the past five years, the Wingreens business has grown from Rs 5 crore to over Rs 100 crore in annual revenue.

After a 25-year stint in advertising, Srivastava wanted to build a business that married her passion for contributing to society with her love for food, which is how the Wingreens brand was born. The ‘WIN’ of Wingreens stands for the Women’s Initiative Network. Srivastava started by creating a farming model and rented small farms as she used techniques such as drip irrigation and multi-cropping to grow value-added crops and sell directly to end consumers.

With that business scaling, she launched the fresh dip category in India by skilling and empowering underprivileged women. Even today the products are handmade by the same women who were earlier not allowed to stir out of their homes.

From being a dip maker, Wingreens is now a multi-category business that spans spreads, sauces, mayonnaise, tea, pita and naan chips, herbs, seasonings, spice mixes, pasta and bakery mixes. “The thoughtful way in which Srivastava has gone about building Wingreens as a brand with deep care and competitiveness is extremely inspirational. I look forward to the brand becoming one of the defining consumer packaged goods companies of our generation,” said Albinder Dhindsa, cofounder, Grofers.

Srivastava, who started the business with her husband Arjun, said, “For me the journey has just begun… Success is not determined by how far you reach but how many people you can carry with you… I celebrate every woman who succeeds because it helps us to collectively create this reality.”

Wingreens’ potential market has expanded since April as more people have been staying at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Seizing the opportunity, Srivastava launched a range of products that make cooking at home easy. Today, Wingreens has a sales and distribution presence in 200 cities in India. The plan is to grow 10-fold into a Rs 1,000 crore omnichannel business across multiple food and beverage categories in the next four-five years, including ready gravy mixes, honey and cheese.

Other Contenders


Rashie Jain | Onco

Jain was a manager at Biocon when a family member was diagnosed with cancer. This exposed her to the hardships patients suffering from cancer faced, inspiring her to think of Onco, an end-to-end cancer care platform, which today has over 1,500 oncologists and 500 cancer hospitals as partners.

Suhasini & Anindita Sampath | Sproutlife Foods

Despite no background or training in the FMCG sector, the Sampath sisters have managed to take their nutritious snacks brand Yogabars to 7,000 retail stores across 72 cities. Four years ago, Yogabars surpassed the 1 million orders-amonth milestone. Sproutlife Foods plans to expand to Southeast Asia later this year.

Vineeta Singh | Sugar Cosmetics

Sugar Cosmetics has created a niche for itself, on the back of Instagram commerce, competing with legacy brands such as Lakme, Maybelline, Mac and Colorbar. In five years, it has garnered more than 600,000 followers on Instagram and a presence across 80% of modern trade stores.

Zoya Brar | CORE Diagnostics

Zoya Brar founded the company after a two-year stint at Google. CORE Diagnostics, which undertakes diagnostics, providing solutions for hereditary and sporadic cancers, among others, works with over 3,000 doctors and 200 hospitals in India.