Most of us spend our lives chasing a high-paying corporate job with a Rs 90 lakh annual package.For Mohit Nijhawan, a B.Tech graduate from Chandigarh, it was the very thing he chose to walk away from. After more than two decades in the pharmaceutical industry and rising to a leadership position, he quit his job in December 2020 to pursue something entirely different- something that most people wouldn’t imagine- after he watched a close relative battle cancer, which made him increasingly concerned about the link between lifestyle, diet, and disease.He turned to microgreens to establish his business. Let’s find out what motivated him towards the humble choice.
Meet Mohit Nijhawan, who left a 90 lakh job to establish a microgreens business
Mohit Nijhawan is a B.Tech Computer Science graduate from Chandigarh, after more than two decades in the pharmaceutical industry, rising to the position of regional head at Sanofi-Genzyme, he quit his job in December 2020 to pursue microgreen farming.Nijhawan’s first attempt at the business began in early 2021, in partnership with a friend, but it did not go as planned. He began the microgreens venture soon after quitting his pharma job, but the partnership fell apart and left him to restart from scratch. Rather than giving up, he relaunched the venture in May 2022, this time on his own, with just Rs 30,000 and a rented 100-square-foot space in Chandigarh.According to Greenu’s own website, he set up a vertical indoor farm with three racks, trays, grow lights and seeds, working initially with 21 organic varieties while following strict non-GMO, pesticide-free practices. The early stage of the business was as much about learning as it was about growing, figuring out cultivation techniques, understanding shelf life, and slowly building a customer base from zero.
The venture is a success today, with a monthly turnover in lakhs
From that single rented room, Greenu Microgreens has scaled up considerably. According to the website, the operation has expanded to a 500 sq ft facility with around 60 racks, which is capable of producing 12,000 trays of microgreens a month, sold at nearly Rs 200 per tray.The business generates about Rs 12 lakh in monthly turnover, which comes down to Rs 1.44 crore in annual revenue, with an estimated Rs 60 lakh in profit. Greenu now operates under Embryonic Greens Pvt. Ltd. and supplies to hotels and households across cities including Delhi, Noida, Gurugram and Mumbai.
Nijhawan is now quite more than just an entreprenuer
Nijhawan’s role today goes beyond running his own farm. He has trained over 300 farmers and aspiring entrepreneurs, sharing both the technical and commercial sides of the microgreens business.
