A Munich-based marketing strategist and his co-founder Nandini Joshi are betting that trust, not price, is how India’s spices finally get the global brand they deserve.
On most weekdays, Akhil Purohit is deep inside the machinery of enterprise marketing. From his base in Munich, he works as Product Marketing Manager for Strategic Account Management at the Nemetschek Group, helping shape how some of Europe’s largest strategic accounts think about value. It is precise, high-stakes work. An ITSMA-certified Account Based Marketing strategist, he spends his days learning how large international buyers actually make decisions.
That daily exposure is quietly reshaping a second project of his: Deru Agro, a young Indian spice sourcing company he founded to connect India’s agricultural strength with the expectations of global buyers.
“Working with enterprise accounts teaches you one thing fast,” Purohit says. “People do not buy from you because your product is cheaper. They buy because they trust that you will do what you said you would, every single time.” It is a simple idea. It is also the foundation Deru Agro is being built on.
Purohit’s path to Indian spices did not run in a straight line. He has lived and worked across multiple countries, moving between cultures and markets long enough to notice a pattern that bothered him. India grows some of the finest agricultural produce on earth. Yet in the global spice trade, Indian products are too often treated as an anonymous commodity, sold on price and stripped of any story or brand. “India’s agriculture deserves stronger global branding,” he says. “The quality is already there. What is missing is the packaging, the communication and the trust layer that international buyers expect.”
Deru Agro is his attempt to build that missing layer. The company sources and supplies Indian spices with cumin as its flagship product, alongside red chilli, turmeric, coriander and fennel. On paper it is an Indian spice exporter. In practice, Purohit talks about it less as a trading operation and more as a trust business. The company aims to become known for transparency, consistency and reliable communication rather than for undercutting the market.
“Anyone can send a container of spices,” he says. “The hard part, and the valuable part, is becoming the supplier a buyer never has to worry about. That is what we are building toward.” It is a deliberately unglamorous ambition, and that is rather the point.
If Purohit brings the strategic marketing lens, his co-founder Nandini Joshi brings the engine that turns strategy into relationships. Joshi is an equal partner in Deru Agro, and her remit is broad by design. She leads marketing, buyer outreach, brand development, market research and the relationship building that sits at the center of any serious export business.
The two operate as genuine counterparts rather than founder and deputy. Purohit tends to work from the outside in, starting with how a global buyer perceives quality and risk. Joshi works from the ground up, mapping markets, testing messages and staying close to the people on the other end of every conversation. “Deru Agro does not work without Nandini,” Purohit says plainly. “Strategy is easy to write down. She is the reason it actually reaches buyers.”
That division of labor reflects a wider belief the two share about how modern trade actually works. “Buyers today evaluate people and relationships as much as they evaluate products,” Purohit says. “Especially in food. You are asking someone to put your ingredient into their supply chain and their brand. That is a decision about trust before it is a decision about a purchase order.”
For now, the company is careful about the language it uses. Purohit is quick to correct anyone who describes Deru Agro in the language of overnight success. It is early. The company is building supplier relationships, refining its quality standards and having first conversations with importers, wholesalers and food brands. He speaks in terms of what the company aims to do and is building, not what it has already conquered. “I would rather under-promise and earn the relationship,” he says. “In this business, one broken commitment costs you years.”
What comes next is deliberately patient. The near-term vision for Deru Agro is to establish a reliable base of international buyers who see it as a long-term partner in the global spice trade, not a one-off vendor. Over time, Purohit imagines Indian cumin and other spices from Deru moving through international food brands, private-label programs and hospitality supply chains, carried by a reputation for consistency. The longer arc is a broader ambition around international business and food exports built out of India.
It would be easy to read Deru Agro as a side project for a marketing professional. Purohit sees it the other way around. His enterprise work and his export venture feed each other. One teaches him how global buyers think. The other tests whether he can build something real on that understanding. “Marketing and branding open doors,” he says. “But long-term execution is what actually builds a company. You only find out if you are any good at that over years, not months.”
For a founder still early in the journey, that patience is unusual, and it is exactly what makes Akhil Purohit worth watching. He is not promising to reinvent the global spice trade. He is trying to prove a quieter thesis: that an Indian spice company built on trust, transparency and genuine partnership can earn a place in international markets that price alone never could. Whether Deru Agro becomes a lasting name is still an open question. The way Purohit and Joshi are choosing to build it is already worth following.
