Not every project begins with a brief,
some begin at home.
Dongaon (423701), a remote hamlet tucked alongside Godavari river in Maharashtra, is where I come from. As a sixth-generation farmer, I grew up around soil, slow food, sacred cows, and kitchen stories passed down like heirlooms. Years later, now equipped with the tools of branding and venture design, I returned, not only as a designer, but also as a storyteller.
In this tiny village, the women in my family including my grandma, my mother, my aunties, and many others have been making ghee using time-honored methods. But the world had no idea. Our stories and rich, ethical processes never travelled beyond the village. So, we decided to change that.
Dongaon Local wasn’t built as a brand for the shelves. It was built as a system of resistance and revival. One that challenged patriarchal defaults, reimagined packaging logistics (hello, fragile glass bottles + rural post offices), and proved that hyper-local doesn’t have to mean hyper-limited.
The goal was to honour the tradition without romanticising it, and create a micro enterprise that crafts small batch products, made with love.
What We Did
In 2022, we crafted Dongaon Local, a brand rooted in reverence, not just revenue. At the heart of it is Sajuk Tup, small-batch, handcrafted ghee made with age-old methods by the women of Dongaon. But it was never just about selling ghee. It was about building a system that worked for the community, not just from it.
Here’s what that looked like:
- Empowering homemakers into micro-entrepreneurs
We worked with the women of Dongaon, many of them from my own family; to co-create systems of production, pricing, and packaging that put dignity and decision-making in their hands.
- Challenging deeply ingrained gender roles
In a context where most economic decisions have been male-dominated, we shifted the spotlight, placing women at the helm of a commercially viable, proudly public-facing brand.
- Restructuring the supply chain
We didn’t just figure out how to ship ghee, but also reimagined the logistics for glass jars, fragile contents, and pan-India delivery, designing for emotional connection, reflecting the love and care that was put into making the ghee.
- Speaking to a conscious urban consumer
Our audience? People who care where their food comes from, how it’s made, and who makes it. People who support women-led businesses, value cultural continuity, and actively seek traceability.
- Storytelling with values
The ghee is made only after our cows are fed, and their well-being is always the first priority. Our four cows - Chandrika, Tambdi, Ekadashi and Radha are like our family and that’s the story we proudly tell.
- Designing with empathy and love
From brand identity to copy tone, everything was created to evoke nostalgia and warmth. To give the customers an experience of homemade love.
Brand Philosophy
Dongaon Local is unrefined, honest and small batch. The identity draws directly from life in Dongaon itself. The lovely chirping of the birds, peacefully grazing cattle, a lush blanket of Babul trees, the sound of temple bells in the morning, and the quiet strength of women moving through their day.
The logo is almost like a map of the ecosystem that sustains this product. Every element, right from the expressive illustration of yellow breasted sunbirds, mention of the Pin-code (423701) because the name Dongaon is very common for a village in india (fun fact - there are more than 5 Dongaons in the country) to verbal identity reflecting a lifestyle deeply tied to our farms, tradition, and love.
The tone was made to be warm, raw, and quietly radical.
Every design decision was made to honour that:
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The
softer fonts with round edges
speak to the love and attention that goes into every batch.
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The
glass jar
is more than a container. It’s a transparent lens into a slower way of life.
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And the
tagline,
“Small Farm, Big Love,” is no exaggeration. It’s a lived truth.
Dongaon Local isn’t just women-led, it is women-shaped, women-run, and deeply women-loved. It’s a living archive of generational traditions from my own family and in many ways, it’s my personal visual translation of the place I come from.
Market Response
We expected to sell 10 kilos of ghee.
We ended up shipping over 120+ kilos in the first phase alone, with a 40% customer repeat rate (that’s a big deal for a tiny brand with zero paid marketing).
What started as word of mouth marketing grew via Xplorium and Locavore platforms. We’ve received orders from Delhi to Dimapur, some for ayurvedic treatments, others from chefs and health-conscious parents.
Systems Thinking & Strategy
As a founder and design professional, I worked across:
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Product development (benchmarking vs top ghee brands in India)
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Packaging systems (ensuring durability + ease of reuse)
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Market positioning (honest, culturally anchored, premium)
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Community training (from quality check, label placement to price setting)
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TG profiling (from ayurvedic moms to urban wellness freaks)
Our systems were built to scale horizontally, to respect our limitations, honour our cattle and stay true to our values .
Community Impact
The most rewarding feedback? Not the sales, but the joy on the faces of our women producers reading handwritten customer notes and the sense of emotional empowerment. For them, it was the first time their kitchen skills were seen, celebrated, and monetized.
Building and running Dongaon Local has been more than just branding and storytelling. It is a quiet rebellion, and reconnecting with my roots, my family and taking pride in sharing the bits of my birth-place with the world.
