This D2C Kids’ Nutrition Brand, Little Joys, Won’t Ship a Single Milk Mix Pack Without Third-Party Lab Tests – Calls It “The Honest Report”

The urgency around trust in kids’ nutrition has only grown in recent years. 

A widely discussed incident involving popular ORS products, marketed as “healthy” and “safe for children” sparked strong backlash from parents when discrepancies between on-pack claims and ingredient realities came to light. 

Parents questioned how products positioned as essential for children’s health could rely on vague claims without clear, verifiable disclosure.

In the food and wellness industry, there’s a term for misleading yet technically legal positioning: health-washing. 

Instead of lying outright, brands selectively disclose information, marketing “no maida”, “clinically proven”, or “safe for kids”, while ingredient lists reveal sugar under alternate names, flavour enhancers, preservatives, or refined oils.

This gap between claims and reality becomes even more concerning in children’s nutrition.

Children’s bodies are in active stages of growth and development. Exposure to misleadingly marketed foods doesn’t just affect short-term health it shapes taste preferences, eating habits, and long-term outcomes.

“Claims are great, but they’re even better when they’re backed by proof,” Revant Bhate, co-founder of Little Joys, tells Startup Pedia. 

“When we started with Little Joys, we knew we didn't want to add to a parent’s anxiety. What we can do is be as transparent as it gets about what your child is getting when they drink Nutrimix. That’s where the honest report comes in,” he adds.

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The Background

With prior experience in investment banking (YES Securities) and venture capital (Kalaari Capital), Revant Bhate co-founded Little Joys after repeatedly encountering the same concern in parent conversations.

“As parents, we all want the best for our children. But the real question is how do we decide what ‘best’ actually is? Is it what’s easily available, what’s medically recommended, or simply what we grew up consuming ourselves? In almost every conversation with parents, I hear the same intent: we want to give our children a better life than we had and that usually starts with better food and nutrition,” Revant Bhate shares. 

“The brands and products that were available to us are the same which are omnipresent today. They are the largest and most widely distributed and recommended ones. We conceptualized Little Joys to solve for this. Giving ability to parents like me who wanted "Better" for their children,” he adds.

In 2021, he co-founded Little Joys with a clear but difficult goal: to build a brand that is “approved by mothers and loved by kids” at the same time.

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Taking Stress Off Parents’ Plates

Modern parenting is marked by constant trade-offs, amplified by aggressive marketing and conflicting advice. Nutrition often sits at the centre of this anxiety.

This is the problem Little Joys set out to solve.

The brand’s purpose is simple: to help parents make nutrition decisions with confidence, not confusion.

Instead of relying on claims, Little Joys chose a harder path, verification. Certification, testing, and public disclosure became foundational to how the brand operates.

Today, Little Joys offers products for children aged 2 to 15, including Nutrimix (their milk mix powder), no-added-sugar multivitamin gummies, clean foods for kids like preservative-free tomato sauces, palm-oil-free chocolate spreads, and protein-rich oats.

But over time, the team realized certification alone wasn’t enough.

“When we started, we used to give an entire certification about what our product contains, but then we realized that wasn’t enough. We keep teaching our kids since they are very young that honesty is the best policy. Why shouldn’t that apply to us as well?” Revant remarks. 

The Honest Report: Making Transparency Actionable

This belief led to The Honest Report, a first-of-its-kind initiative in the Indian kids’ nutrition space.

Every batch of Little Joys’ Nutrimix is tested at NABL-accredited third-party laboratories. The reports include exact protein content and heavy-metal screening, and are made publicly accessible.

Parents can scan a QR code on the pack, enter the batch number, and view the report for the specific batch they are holding.

The testing screens for heavy metals that could potentially harm children, alongside nutritional accuracy.

“At Little Joys, our stance is clear: we reject any inventory of Nutrimix, in case it doesn’t pass the third-party lab tests or isn’t up to the mark. The reason? Simple. We need parents to trust us, not because we are telling or urging them to, but because we are showing them proof. Words are just words, actions are facts,” the entrepreneur adds.

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Putting Trust Before Marketing

With initiatives like zero added sugar, clean labels at any cost, and batch-wise third-party verification, Little Joys is shifting how trust is built in kids’ nutrition.

Rather than push-led marketing, the brand wants parents to choose it because it owns every health statement with evidence, not persuasion.

The Honest Report has triggered organic conversations online. Parents, doctors, founders, and professionals have shared posts of lab reports on LinkedIn and Instagram, questioning why such transparency isn’t already standard in categories that impact children’s health.

Dr. Manan Vora, PhD scholar and orthopaedic surgeon, wrote:

“I've been using Little Joys and they have something called an "Honest Report" - a QR code on every pack that shows:

▶︎ Exact protein content for that specific batch
▶︎ Heavy metal levels tested in certified labs
▶︎ Real data, not generic claims

Honestly, that kind of transparency gives me something I rarely feel as a parent: peace of mind,”

Similarly, Diipa Khosla, founder of indē wild and NGO Post For Change, shared:

“We’ve been using their Nutrimix for Dua for a while because it comes with an “Honest Lab Report” for EVERY batch. The report tells you exact protein content and that their heavy metal is within safe limits. This is complete radical transparency for everything you need to know about the exact product you’re feeding your child.”

The recurring sentiment across platforms was simple:

If a brand is willing to show the report, it feels like they have nothing to hide.

In a category long driven by familiarity and marketing spend, Little Joys’ approach signals a shift, one where proof, not promises, may increasingly define trust in children’s nutrition.

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