Hi, I am Vanitha Santosh. Let me run you through my little journey so far. As a little girl I was always fascinated with colours hues & fabrics which eventually lead to a sustainable brand “Udupu” exclusively for women & kids in the late nineties after my marriage with Santosh Rao.
As an aspiring designer I walked through some of the beautiful experiences of designing great outfits through my self learning skills of hand block printing, natural dyeing & hand embroidery. After moving to Mysore, a city with rich culture & heritage opened up a a lot of opportunities to explore my creativity.
We started a small startup company in the year 2001 called “Little Bubbles” engaged in Newborn kits & Bespoke Uniform manufacturing for hospitals & hospitality industries, bridging the gap especially in the good & comfortable work wear. Fuelling my sustainable lifestyle was my biggest passion. Then comes “The hidden stores”. We started a small quaint little store of Natural & Sustainable products from Paper mache gifts, Handmade soaps from Himalayas, Fabric jewellery, Cotton & Linen Kurtis, handpainted artifacts, Natural hand dyed fabrics, Hand Block printed Sarees & off course our tailored Designer Blouses was the talk of the town. We also Revived Old Silk & Cotton Sarees with our Handblock Printing & simple hand embroidery giving it Fresh New look.
We grew from just one machine to 18 today as a family completely self sustainable company. We have catered to best in the industries for the most elite resorts in the country to name a few, Evolve back Jungle lodges & resorts, Cicada resorts, Windflower resorts, Greenwoods resorts, Nestle India, Jubiliant, Cycle pure agarbathis, Apollo hospitals, Narayana health, Manipal hospitals, Columbia Asia Etc. We were pioneers in introducing the concept of newborn baby kits to hospitals & new workwear concepts across industries.
Being chosen as one of the first few 10k women entrepreneurs in the world in 2009-2010 & also as an ambassador in 2018 feels really good as a first generation entrepreneur. Over the years we renamed Little bubbles as M/s Prime Essentialz & added different verticals. We expanded & diversified Prime Essentialz & hence we put a pause to The Hidden Store project in 2014. Today we are 22 people strong with 70% women in our small MSME.
Potz to Pans
Potz to Pans was started by my Mom Swarnamba & myself Vanitha Santosh with an idea to keep our traditional taste of Karnataka alive. Everyday emerging issues with food adulteration & Lifestyle issues cropping up amongst elderly, gave us an opportunity to engage my dear Mom with what she is comfortable & passionate about. We are a typical brahmin family & we love our food. The idea was to bring out our simple & Seasonal flavours to the people around.
Now we are 3 Generations Strong with Mom, myself, and my Children. We make the best chutneypudis , South Indian masalas & lipsmacking Seasonal Pickles. All these are our heirloom recipes & treasures of Karnataka passed on from generations.
Even the processes are so unique. Our products are 100% Natural & have zero preservatives, zero additives, zero artificial colours. Potz to Pans is a sustainable brand & we use Unprocessed Salt, Wood press Sesame Oil, Byadagi chillies, Hand roasted, Slow cooking processes .Today our presence is there all over India & in 7-9 countries, with just word of mouth, flea markets & Social media. In Future we want to hear the name Potz to Pans in every household as the best South Indian masalas & pickles.
Here are some links to know more about Potz to Pans:
https://www.instagram.com/potztopans/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054587883170
