In 2009, Sandeep Pandey quit his engineering career in Delhi to move back to his quaint hometown of Nainital. His plan was to open a restaurant, but just before its inauguration, the 2013 floods ravaged it.

Three months after the disaster, while walking through a field, he noticed a group of women labourers eating roti flatbread with pisyun loon — pahadi salt hand grounded on silbatta (traditional grinding stone).

“They offered me chapati with salt made with garlic and green chillies. It was extremely tasty. I realised it is this salt that makes pahadi food so flavoursome,” Sandeep says.

While relishing the meal, he also got a glimpse into the harsh lives of hill women, who toiled all day to earn a daily wage of Rs 270.

So, Sandeep decided to sell this salt and provide employment to rural women. In 2013, he launched HimFla along with his childhood friends Sourabh Pant and Yogendra Singh.

Today, they sell 52 varieties of flavoured salts including garlic green chilli, hemp, mint, and Gandreni kala jeera.

Every month, HimFla manufactures up to 20 quintals of flavoured salt to cater to customers across India and internationally, in countries like Australia, the US, the UK, Germany, and Brazil.

Starting with Rs 160 to buy salt, coriander, and a silbatta, the company now generates an annual revenue of Rs 1.5 crore. It also employs 80 rural women who have dropped shovels to grind spices and herbs on silbatta.

Selling the flavoured salt has changed not only the lives of these rural women but also Sandeep, who was once thrown out of his home for bringing disgrace to the family.

“When I told my family that I intended to sell salt, they were disappointed in me. They thought I was possessed by some hill ghost!” he laughs.

“My friends in the US, who buy luxury cars, often ask me to join them and earn handsome salaries. But nothing compares to the contentment we feel when we see happy families getting financial independence through our work,” Sandeep adds.