Darshankaur Khalsa - Emerging Women Entrepreneur of the Year - 2021, Pet Food Category

Pune, India
2021

Coming from a background of Ice Cream Manufacturing & her family owning Mumbai city’s most desired Fast Food place, Darshan naturally had a food business instinct, installed in her. This made her join the Male-Dominated industry with her father that enforced her to fight the traditional male–powering mentality across the sector, where she did prove her worth and made the industry welcome women entrepreneurs.

However, with her love for her 4 legged daughter – Tyra a German Shepherd dog; she ventured into Waggy Zone, manufacturing Ice Creams for Dogs, keeping her first step in the Pet Industry. Starting in 2017, she won the Most Innovative Debut Product by a highly recognized body in the pet industry. She expanded her presence in Telangana, Delhi NCR, & Chennai and by the end of 2020, her products were available in 50 stores across 7 cities. 

Paving the path for herself in the industry, Waggy Zone was listed in Start-Up India’s top 60 start-ups in 2018. The same year she was also awarded the Nari Shakti Award under a special mention category.

Looking at the scalability issue with the niche, highly perishable, and unique product for the pet industry, in 2019 she launched an Ice Cream Pre-Mix for Dogs that aims at resolving the scalability limitations, taking her product & presence across the country. Today Waggy Zone InstaMix is available online has a loyal set of consumers across the country. 

in 2019, she also was invited to the Women Economic Forum in Amsterdam and won a Young Woman Achiever’s award by WEF and was invited to start a Club of Women Entrepreneurs in the Pet Industry, was how she started the Wagpreneurs a group of women that empowers women to network with each other and focuses on a cumulative growth of women in the Pet Industry. 


×
  • Award
  • The Symbol
  • Benefits
  • How it works
  • Winners
  • News
  • Partners
  • Apply Now
  • +91 9160600044