Originally reported and written in March 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.

In India, motherhood often forces women to leave the workforce — around 50% of women leave their jobs after the age of 30 to take care of children, and only 27% return. But for 32-year-old Jyoti Srivastava, a chemical engineer by profession, motherhood was not a barrier to her success. Instead, it birthed an entrepreneur in her.

Jyoti runs Little Cherry Mom, a millet-based baby food business that offers various products including millet flours, instant dosa mixes, sugar and jaggery free laddus (sweet), healthy snacks for kids such as khakras (thin crackers), A2 Bilona cow ghee, and amla prash (immunity booster made from Indian gooseberry), among others.

Since its launch in 2022, the company has catered to more than 12,000 customers. With this, she has been able to clock nearly Rs 1 crore of revenue.

From designing rockets to food recipes

Specialising in nanotechnology and rocket propellants, the engineer used to design rockets to be commissioned in the Indian Army. She loved her job, she says, but was overworked and underpaid. After working for two-and-a-half-years, she quit the job in 2018 to work as a freelancer for Air Force projects, but that did not work out well.

Then in 2019, she found out she was pregnant. 

After childbirth, she faced several issues with breastfeeding her son, as he was unable to........

© The Better India