Pick up a jar of “healthy” peanut butter or chocolate spread at the supermarket, flip it around, and you’ll usually find sugar and palm oil at the top of the ingredient list, with nuts themselves barely making an appearance. Nutella is a classic example. Finding a spread where nuts are actually the main ingredient is so difficult. That was exactly the problem the founders of Hotto wanted to solve.
How it all Started
Hotto started in the most interesting manner – informally, over (many) chaayas, after a workout.
“We’re all friends from the gym,” says Dr Rosemary Chettupuzha, one of Hotto’s three co-founders. “One day, after a workout, we were having tea and talking about wanting to start something healthy. That’s where the idea of Hotto came from.”
The three founders may not share the same industry, but they do share a gym. Rosemary is a dentist currently pursuing a fellowship in Chennai. She also co-runs an Instagram food page called Hoggers. Saleem Mohammed, the most experienced of the lot, has spent decades running a furniture business across Kerala. Ajith Varghese, on the other hand, works in the film industry and runs his own online brand on the side. This unique mix of backgrounds is exactly what made Hotto work.
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Why Hotto Chose Clean Ingredients Over Shortcuts
“Our USP is clean ingredients,” Rosemary says. “If you look at many popular spreads, more than half the product is sugar and palm oil. The actual nuts are only a very small percentage.”
Hotto flips that ratio. Every spread is built around A-grade nuts first, with other ingredients chosen to support flavour and texture rather than replace the nuts entirely. The cocoa is sourced directly from cacao farms in Kerala. Batches are kept small to maintain consistent quality.
The current range includes almond butter, hazelnut spread, peanut butter, cashew spread, and a cashew chocolate spread that has no preservatives, no artificial flavours, and no palm oil. All the flavours are naturally sweetened with dates, and have no sugar. “We wanted to deliver a healthier product to people’s homes,” Rosemary says.
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Learning Business While Building Hotto
Rosemary’s main learning came with starting a company. “I didn’t know anything about business,” she admits. But she was fortunate enough to learn from her co-founders who had the knack of running their own brand/business.
The three founders split the work along the lines of what they already knew. Rosemary took on branding and marketing, drawing on the social media instincts she’d built running Hoggers. Ajith brought web and digital experience from his own online brand. Saleem brought the operational and business knowledge from decades in furniture retail.
“We’ve divided the responsibilities,” Rosemary says. “Everyone brings something different.”
Before Hotto ever reached a shelf, the team spent close to nine months testing recipes, researching ingredients, and understanding manufacturing at a small-batch level. Hotto officially launched on January 1. Their proof of concept mainly came from their trial run at Eat Kochi Eat’s flea Market venture, Nice Things Only, where their brand was the first one to be sold out.
Where You Can Buy Hotto Now
Hotto is still a young brand, but it’s already growing past its original Ernakulam/Thrissur base. “Earlier, most of our orders came from Kochi and Bengaluru,” Rosemary says. “Now we’re seeing orders from different parts of India as well.”
That growth got a boost recently when Hotto listed its products on Amazon, opening the brand up to buyers across the country. Rather than chasing supermarket shelf space next, the founders are in conversations with cafés, premium gyms, and companies looking for healthier corporate gifting options, a deliberate choice given the brand’s cost structure.
“Our ingredients are good, so naturally our margins are lower,” Rosemary explains. “For us to grow sustainably, we need to focus on bulk orders.”
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What Makes Hotto Different
Rosemary keeps coming back to the concept that healthy eating starts with understanding what’s actually in your food. “If you read our ingredient list, you’ll understand exactly what’s inside,” she says.
Hotto is an honest-to-goodness promise, but one that matters more every year as more shoppers look for clean-label food and natural nut spreads they can actually trust. As it expands into cafés, gyms, and homes across India, the founders are betting that healthy doesn’t have to mean bland and that a jar of nut spread made the right way can prove it.
You can get your jar of Hotto here.
FAQ
Is Hotto peanut butter healthy? Yes! Hotto’s spreads are built around A-grade nuts as the primary ingredient, with no preservatives, artificial flavours, or palm oil added.
Does Hotto contain palm oil or added sugar? No palm oil across the range. Two of the three spreads are naturally sweetened with dates; one contains added sugar.
Where can I buy Hotto in India? Hotto is available online and on Amazon, with growing demand from cities beyond its original base in Kochi and Bengaluru.
Who founded Hotto? Hotto was founded by three friends from Kochi – Dr Rosemary Chettupuzha (a dentist), Saleem (a furniture business veteran), and Ajith (from the film industry) – who met through a shared gym.
