Every Bihari family has its own thekua recipe. A little more jaggery in one house, a pinch of saunf in another, a different pattern from a different wooden mould. But somewhere along the way, as thekua left home kitchens and moved into shops, something changed. Ingredients were swapped to cut costs. Recipes were changed to make packets last longer. What was sold as "traditional" was often not the thekua our mothers and grandmothers made.
The problem we wanted to solve
If you wanted thekua outside a Bihari home, you usually had three choices:
- The street stall: cheap, but you never know how hygienically it was made.
- The festival packet: tasty, but expensive and only available around Chhath.
- Nothing at all: if you lived outside Bihar and Jharkhand, or wanted it in any other month of the year.
Our founders, Jayanta and Kailash, ran into all three as teenagers in Adra, West Bengal (read their story). They soon realised it was not only thekua. Besan laddoo, makhana, banana chips and many other traditional snacks had the same problem. So in early 2025, they started Shuddh Swad.
What "Shuddh Swad" means
Shuddh means pure. Swad means taste. Our promise is simple: the original taste, made cleanly, priced fairly, and available all year, anywhere in India.
For us, "traditional" means the same method and the same ingredients thekua was made with in our homes, the way households made it 20 years ago, before the shortcuts crept in.
How we make our thekua
- Familiar ingredients: whole wheat flour, suji, sugar or jaggery, desiccated coconut, ghee, refined sunflower oil, cashew, almond, cardamom and fennel. The full list is printed on every pack.
- Hand-pressed: every thekua is shaped in a traditional wooden mould, which gives it the pattern you remember from home.
- Made fresh: we make in regular batches, so what reaches you is fresh.
- Hygiene first: our kitchen in Adra is FSSAI-licensed and everyone on the floor wears gloves and hairnets. We use machines only where hand-work is not practical at scale.
- No preservatives.
Our flavours
- Traditional Thekua (Coconut Suji Magic): the classic taste of Bihar.
- Jaggery Thekua (Coconut Jaggery Magic): sweetened with jaggery.
- Elaichi Thekua (Coconut Elaichi Magic): a little cardamom changes everything.
From ₹10,000 to a team of 40
Shuddh Swad started with roughly ₹10,000 and an Instagram account. We set ourselves a public challenge of ₹1 crore in sales in one year, and crossed it in about six months (the full story). We are still completely bootstrapped. Our team has grown from 11 people to around 40, and most of them are hired locally in and around Adra.
Where to find us
Order directly on shuddhswad.shop with delivery across India, or find us on Blinkit, Instamart, Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart and Meesho.
What's next
Thekua is only the beginning. We are working on more regional snacks from across India, and before any of them reaches you, we check it against the old home recipe first.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Follow us on Instagram to see what is cooking in Adra.
