From the Silver Screen to the Dinner Plate: How Imagine Meats Is Rewriting India's Food Story

There is a moment in every person's life when a personal truth becomes too loud to ignore. For Riteish Deshmukh, one of Bollywood's most beloved actors, that moment came quietly — not on a film set under blazing lights, but at a dining table, staring at a plate of food that no longer felt right.

Riteish had gone vegan, and suddenly he was craving certain flavours — the kind that had defined his entire life. The meaty replacements that existed, like soya chunks, no longer did the job anymore. He wanted keema. He wanted seekh kebab. He wanted biryani that hit the same way it always had — fragrant, spiced, deeply satisfying. But he wanted none of the guilt that now came with it.

His wife, Genelia D'Souza, saw it differently but arrived at the same place. As a mother and as a citizen of India and the world, Genelia had always been focused on the kind of planet they were leaving behind for their children. Seeing firsthand the innovation underway in the global food industry, they were encouraged to take a big step. Together, they decided that if the product they were looking for didn't exist, they would simply build it themselves.

That decision, made somewhere between conviction and craving, became the seed of Imagine Meats.

The company was founded in 2020, registered as Imagine Foods Private Limited, and headquartered in Mumbai. But the road from idea to product was anything but smooth. The world had just come to a grinding halt. COVID-19 had locked down India and disrupted supply chains, businesses, and lives at every level.

Bollywood stars Genelia and Riteish searched the globe to find a leading partner in plant protein solutions that would help them bring their concept of plant-based Indian meals to market. They found ADM Nutrition India and its head, Sanjay Laud. Coincidently, all parties were based in Mumbai. This shared geography became more than just convenient — it was critical to get the project off the ground during COVID-19.

With all ADM employees transitioned to work-from-home arrangements, Laud conducted his face-to-face collaborations with the Deshmukhs. He shared homemade recipes to develop prototype flavours and showcase the textures. In the middle of a pandemic, two Bollywood stars and a food scientist were essentially cooking together across lockdown constraints, tasting, rejecting, refining — obsessing over mouthfeel, bite, fibrosity, and aftertaste — because they knew that for India, taste was non-negotiable.

ADM and Imagine Meats' founders were diligent during the trial period to ensure the entire eating experience — including mouthfeel, fibrosity, bite and aftertaste — was true to the gold standard dishes they were replicating with alternative proteins. Rather than simply offering a single soy ingredient, ADM provided bespoke, flexitarian systems using soy and pea proteins, as well as other ingredients, with product development occurring with the support of European and North American teams.

What emerged from this painstaking process was a range unlike anything the Indian market had seen before — not the bland soya nugget of the past, not a Western-style burger trying to pass itself off as local, but genuinely Indian food in a new form.

On September 10, 2021, Imagine Meats launched in Mumbai. The founders intentionally debuted on the same day as Ganesh Chaturthi, so consumers could have their indulgence and remain vegetarian during the Hindu holiday season. It was a launch that understood India — its festivals, its food identity, its emotional relationship with what it eats.

The range included keemas, kebabs, nuggets, burgers, and biryanis in plant-based chicken and mutton varieties — a diverse selection focused on catering to every craving. Genelia, also a nutritionist, took care of all the recipes, working with culinary scientists and chefs to make the products ready-to-eat, long-term storage-friendly and healthy meals.

The brand's development was also guided by The Good Food Institute (GFI), the US non-profit organisation that promotes plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy and eggs within the framework of environmental sustainability.

The response was immediate. Within weeks, Imagine Meats was available in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, through retail partnerships with Nature's Basket, Reliance Fresh, and direct-to-consumer sales through its website.

Then came a moment that signalled Imagine Meats had arrived on a completely different scale.

In June 2022, Tata Starbucks announced the introduction of an all-new vegan product lineup in India, developed in partnership with Imagine Meats. Starbucks added three food products: a Vegan Sausage Croissant Roll, a Vegan Hummus Kebab Wrap, and a Vegan Croissant Bun. For a homegrown Indian startup barely a year old, landing a partnership with one of the world's most iconic café chains was a defining moment.

Riteish said at the launch event: "A lot of research and development has gone behind these products. We have rejected so many products because they don't meet all the criteria we have set out as a company. We are thrilled to have Imagine Meats available in this new avatar at Starbucks."

The Starbucks and Imagine Meats partnership was made available at stores in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Gurugram, Jaipur, Goa, Kolkata, Noida, and Pune.

By this point, Imagine Meats had grown into something much larger than a celebrity venture. It had become a genuine cultural statement — proof that Indian consumers were ready for conscious eating without compromise.

Currently, Imagine Meats' products can be found in 14 states across India. Their frozen product range includes different flavours of biryani, kebabs, sausages and burger patties.

5 Lessons Every Entrepreneur Can Learn from Imagine Meats

1. Solve your own problem first. The brand didn't begin with a market report. It began with Riteish craving a kebab and finding nothing that worked. The most authentic businesses are built when the founder is also the frustrated customer.

2. The right partner changes everything. Building a plant-based meat company requires deep food science expertise. Rather than guessing, the Deshmukhs searched globally until they found ADM — and that partnership shaped every product that followed.

3. Timing is a strategy, not an accident. Launching on Ganesh Chaturthi was a deliberate choice. It showed that Imagine Meats understood Indian culture deeply and knew exactly when its message would land with the most resonance.

4. Quality earns the partnerships. The Starbucks collaboration didn't happen because of star power. It happened because the products were genuinely good. As Riteish noted, the team rejected products that didn't meet their own standards — even when it slowed them down.

5. Purpose-driven brands build loyalty that advertising cannot buy. Imagine Meats was built around a clear mission — conscious eating, sustainability, and kindness toward the planet. That kind of story doesn't just sell products. It builds a community that believes in what you stand for.