98 year old woman starts food business in India at age 91

Prabhavati Bhagwati, a 98 year old woman in Ahmedabad, India, runs a home based food venture called Nani’s Nashta.

She established the business in 2018 when she was 91 years old. The venture began after her husband died in 2017 and her daughters moved away, leaving her with fewer people to cook for in her own home.

The business started when a friend of her daughter asked Prabhavati to prepare homemade khandvi, a Gujarati snack, for a party and offered to pay for it. This single request led to the creation of Nani’s Nashta. The business grew through word of mouth rather than formal marketing. It now serves more than 200 families every week. Prabhavati maintains the standards of the business by personally tasting the food and approving orders before they reach customers.

The menu includes traditional Gujarati dishes like dhokla, thepla, and bhakri, as well as snacks like vada pav and pav bhaji. Prabhavati says the venture provides her with a sense of purpose and a new identity as a founder. Industrialist Anand Mahindra shared her story publicly, describing her words as a source of daily inspiration. Prabhavati intends to continue cooking for as long as she is able.