The young sportsman, Mr Aman Puri, heads Steadfast Nutrition, Noida, a premium sports nutrition company, which is revolutionising this segment in India. It is also about inculcating the habit of eating nutritious supplements for good health in a high-performance sport and stress in society. Mr Puri has participated in several national international Mountain Biking competitions to being an endurance athlete in different races like triathlons, cross-country duathlons, trail running and much more. The avid cyclist has seen it all. It is when he realised the huge void in nutrition among sportspersons and took a step to change the paradigm of nutrition quotient among the sporting fraternity.
STEADFAST IS FOR ATHLETES BY ATHLETES
Having been into high endurance and professional sport yourself, what has your observation been about health and nutrition needs of Indian sportspersons?
The biggest impediment, according to me, is a lack of awareness about the importance of supplements. Very often, people do not know why a supplement is required, the role of supplement in building one’s stamina and strength and so on. Consequently, they get introduced to supplements much later in life, but then it is already too late because it becomes difficult by then for the body to adapt to the supplements as the muscles and bones have already developed. However, with increasing awareness, ignorance has declined, more so, because in the last decade sports has developed in a big way in the country with a 360-degree approach to it where the government, corporate, and other industries are giving sports the much-deserved focus. The other prime concern is the availability of genuine sport nutrition supplements in the market, as many available in the market come without any validation. More than 85 percent of the market is glutted with duplicate products. All these factors are a bane to the progress of sports and have pulled us back in sports. Nevertheless, with our consistent and persistent spreading of awareness by ensuring the quality of Steadfast Nutrition, the situation has improved. In fact, if you see the performance of India in the last few Olympics, it has improved significantly. We have come much far in a very positive way from where the silver lining is definitely visible.
How is Steadfast Nutrition filling the gap between nutrition, affordability and performance considering that most of India’s sportspeople come from humble backgrounds?
We are a division that has built its business around the ideology ‘For Athletes, By Athletes’, giving us an edge in the market and attracting clients. Steadfast is fortunate to have the highest number of athletes and sports persons from diverse sporting backgrounds using our nutrition supplements, with the number having risen significantly in the last two years. As most of the sportspersons come from humble backgrounds, we ensure to reach out to them both at the state and national level through sports institutes, sports federations and bodies such as Sports Authority of India, for providing Steadfast products at a subsidised cost, so that availability and affordability is not a problem for them. It is where Steadfast’s focus lies, presently.
Are Steadfast supplements sport-specific or uniformly effective for all sports?
Steadfast Nutrition is a subsidiary of Steadfast MediShield Pvt. Ltd., which is a pioneer in Kidney Care. The parent company has been in the business of marketing & research for both dialysis and transplant medicines for Chronic Kidney Disease for the last 12 years, recommended by more than 4000+ doctors, who include nephrologists, physicians, cardiologists and many more. Steadfast Nutrition has two divisions namely the Sports Nutrition Range and the Wellness Range, besides another division Steadfast Sports, which is a sports event management company. Steadfast has a couple of events lined up for this month, and with the overall COVID pandemic scenario improving, I am happy to share that January onwards the events schedule is quite tight for us.
How many categories of products do Steadfast have and how many are in pipeline?
We have added quite a few products to our portfolio, including a couple of immunity boosters just before the COVID pandemic. It was sheer coincidence and not planned, because the product was formulated before the contagion broke out and therefore, we went ahead with its launch. Steadfast has about 23 products in nutrition, which includes all of the sports and wellness divisions. In the next couple of months, we shall be bringing another quantum of products into the market. Steadfast Nutrition basically has two divisions related to supplements. One is the sports division, which is specific to sportspersons across disciplines and the other is the wellness division, which is a generic division where the supplements range from age 5 to 95 years old. Steadfast products are consumed for building the body mass, as immunity boosters, for fulfilling the nutrition gaps, and replenish the micro and macro nutrients essential for the body. We do have a couple of specialised products for active kids above 5 years of age. Extra care is taken while developing products for kids because we don’t want them to consume sugar-based supplements available in the market. Our supplements give them complete nutrition, which is both macro and micro nutrients, for their proper development and stamina. Our vision is to make India the sports capital of the world, by nurturing upcoming generation at young age which will help us to achieve our goal.
What is your viewpoint on health food developed from natural ingredients that are considered to be healthy?
Our approach is to use extracts derived from natural sources for our supplements. We do not use artificially infused ingredients for supplements. The brand's products come under the category of processed food, meaning that they are extracted from natural sources e.g. whey protein is extracted from milk after various filtration processes. Whey protein is consumed as a muscle growth supplement. The brand also has a few plant, herb and spice based products all of which comes from nature. We do not own any manufacturing unit, but we source our supplements from a couple of manufacturers who are working for us. We ensure that the formulations and quality of the products is not compromised. Steadfast operates from its corporate office in Sector-4, Noida and a registered office in Delhi.
How big is the market for the sports nutrition industry and how bright is the future?
The sports nutrition market is in itself very huge, but the drawback is that it is an unorganised market and so the impact as a specialised industry segment, is not visible. It also makes it very difficult to conclude how big a market it is. But according to my estimates, the sports nutrition industry is a whopping approx. Rs 5000 crore market and is still growing rapidly. The kind of population we have in our country, the use is there, the clients are there, sports is growing, all of which makes our industry viable and for us to support nutrition and wellness requirements in a big way. I must say that the future is very bright for sure.
Does Steadfast support or sponsor sportspersons from needy backgrounds?
At Steadfast, we sponsor and support over 150 athletes from different sporting backgrounds from within the country and a few from different countries globally such as Kenya, Russia, the US. We have specific criteria, guidelines and a lot of procedures to analyse and shortlist candidates deserving of the sponsorship.
Who inspired you into sport and sports nutrition? How good has the young journey been so far?
Professional sport is rarely encouraged in India. So, in a way, I take the credit for inspiring myself to get into professional cycling. I have participated in competitions in India and abroad, which was doing very well. I have done races including HHMR - WORLD’S HIGHEST ALTITUDE RACE (TWICE), MTB HIMALAYA - ASIA’S TOUGHEST MOUNTAIN BIKING RACE (TWICE), HIMALAYAN RUSH CROSS COUNTRY DUATHLON, NEPAL (TWICE), NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP (5 TIMES), YOU YANG CROSS COUNTRY DUATHLON, GEELONG, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA. That’s how I understood the need for authentic supplements for sports persons to boost their energy. The journey has been pretty good this far, we have been growing getting better and getting stronger by reaching out to more people. Nutrition has been my subject and interest area. I have done masters with a specialisation thesis in eating habits and health, besides several international certificate courses in sports, kids and fitness nutrition. I am also an internationally certified coach in sleep science and sports psychology. Personally, I would like to go deeper into these subjects, use it for the betterment of sports fraternity and grow.