Iksha Chhabra is a specialist in nutrition, food processing and food safety and has over 22 years of experience in food product innovations. Her experience spans across the areas of recipes scale- up, product communication, thought leadership for strategy planning and execution, food regulations, community programmes and training. She has a rich experience of Research, Development sector, Industry, Social enterprises, Start-ups and Academia. She worked as a business head for a brand Earthspired (Mrida group) for 4 years wherein she was instrumental in developing the complete range of millet and amaranth based products and achieved smart food partnership for the brand followed by packaging award and also recognised for the efforts with an award in education and training for developing the “farm to fork” model.
The brand became the “Food for Good” Partner for the Hult Prize 2021- the world’s largest social entrepreneurship competition by the Hult International Business School and the United Nations Foundation. She has mentored students from various universities as IIM Lucknow, Delhi university, NIFTEM, SDA Bocconi, SOIL Foundation, University of Debreccan (Hungary), University of Virginia (U.S)
Iksha is self-motivated and likes to challenge the status quo and does not hesitate to roll her sleeves up to provide hands-on guidance and leadership. She has supported start-ups, solved business challenges and helped build authentic & collaborative relationships across all stakeholders.
She has been a technical advisor to various organizations in areas of product innovation, nutrition, project proposals and trainings. She led the pilot project on Mid-Day Meals (U.P) under MHRD and provided recommendations for improvement. As a consultant she has been closely involved with various organizations as Wholsome Foods Pvt. Ltd. Neevv Inc, Mrida, SSMI, Nirogam India, Micronutrient Initiative, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Conserve India, Food Ladder (Australia), Asian Heritage Foundation for their core working and technical support for products, projects, and strategy development.
She was a lecturer in Delhi University and has taught there for 8 years. She has authored a food science practical manual, has published various research papers and also designed course content for Food safety and governance course at PHFI. She did her masters from Lady Irwin college and has a PGDM in Human Resources and is a ISO 22000 and ISO 17025 trained specialist.