This Atlanta entrepreneur wants to make eating healthy snacks a fun educational tool by helping kids read food labels.
BY NEHA NEGANDHI*
When Priya Pillai and her husband brought their beautiful baby girl home eight years ago, they happily settled into a new life as a family of three. Just two short years later when Oviya was a toddler, she started showing symptoms of severe food allergies. Not just from the top eight food categories but Oviya’s blood test reports showed she was acutely allergic to 22 food-borne allergens. “Giving her food became terrifying because we couldn’t guess the reaction. It was heartbreaking to see her little body covered in eczema – sometimes so inflamed that she couldn’t even bear to wear clothes” Priya explained.
Going to doctors and taking antihistamines felt like just putting a band-aid on the problem. Wanting to understand the root issue, she read everything she could find and became totally obsessed with figuring it out. Priya was so determined that she left her corporate job, went to Harvard, and earned a master’s degree. Then, she turned all that hard work into action by starting 20 Days, a healthy snack company for kids.
“Becoming a food entrepreneur was never something I imagined,” Priya confesses, as we sipped tea in an Alpharetta, GA coffee shop. Her journey into the world of food seemed like an unlikely path, especially given her background. Priya grew up in Nashik, India, a town known for its vineyards just outside Bombay, where food was always wholesome and homegrown. Her mother and grandmother were experts in seasonal cooking, tailoring meals to the needs of the body.
“My family was full of doctors and naturopaths. They had a deep, innate knowledge of how food worked in balance with Earth, our body, our minds and more. Their integral know-how became foundational pillars to my own food science journey all those years later,” Priya said.
Despite being surrounded by an extended knowledge of food, cooking was never a priority for Priya. In fact, when she got married at age 27, she didn’t know how to cook. Her focus was on her career, especially after earning an MBA that spanned both India and Germany through the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce. Soon after, she landed a job at Bosch, a German engineering giant, based out of Bangalore.
With her job came constant travel and access to someone always preparing her meals, so food remained in the background of her busy life. In 2014, Priya married her U.S.-based husband and was soon faced with a life-changing decision. Due to immigration restrictions, Priya had to give up her thriving career and move to Atlanta. There, she pivoted by volunteering with the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), assisting startups with product marketing. And in 2016, when their daughter was born, their lives turned in another direction altogether, different from what either she or her husband had known before.
Despite a healthy pregnancy, she developed an allergy to dairy and began experiencing uncomfortable bloating. With no history of food allergies in either her or her husband’s family, it raised many questions. While her body’s allergens rebalanced, her baby girl’s allergies were increasing exponentially. Setting off a journey that not only transformed the way they approached food but also reshaped their entire family’s lifestyle.
“I had to learn my way around the kitchen and cook,” Priya continues. “It wasn’t easy but I had my mom, sister-in-law and mom-in-law (the world’s best support system) providing patience and understanding of the intricacies and fallacies of food.” Reading books, articles, journals led Priya to source everything locally, finding organic dairy farms for fresh milk that she then pasteurized and trashing every single soap, lotion, shampoo and starting over from scratch.
Everything was homemade from scratch. Each ingredient was picked from local farms so they could try different foods with their toddler daughter. Meals meant held breaths to see if her little body could handle what she just ingested. Maybe on a good day, she’d be able to sustain or most days, it would end up in a vomit pool. It was learning about gut enzymes, microbiome functionalities, inflammatory reflex, flare ups, testing, retesting. No stone left unturned in Priya’s world to get to the heart of her daughter’s allergies and make her better.
As years passed, her daughter started showing signs of improvement. As the symptoms eased, Priya contemplated how her accumulated research could potentially help others too. Figuring that earning a postgraduate degree would be the best route. With the support of her husband, at age 33, Priya applied to Harvard, got in, and made the move to Boston. In 2020, she graduated with a Master’s in Liberal Arts with a focus on Nonprofit Management.
Even with an Ivy League degree, finding a job during COVID wasn’t easy. While Priya did secure a job, it wasn’t exactly what she had envisioned.
However, there was a bright spot—Oviya was finally living allergy-free. By 2022, she had outgrown most of her allergies, bringing relief to the whole family.
But also in 2022, there was tragedy when Priya had a terrible car accident causing traumatic brain injury that she recovers from even today. Bed-ridden, losing peripheral vision, slightly able to speak, she was forced to once again start a long journey of learning and balancing family life. I asked her how she doesn’t play the victim card – she does have some right to it – to which she said, “I have no complaints. I have the absolute best support system. Why should I think about the past? When I have so much to feel good about like today I can walk, talk, own a business and keep learning.”
Through it all, Priya stayed focused, especially on keeping her daughter and others allergy-free.
In October 2023, she launched 20 Days, a company that offers healthy snack options in schools. The goal is to give kids better food choices and help them understand what’s good to eat while questioning the shelf life of foods.
To make learning fun, Priya uses puppet shows to teach kids and their parents about healthy eating. 20 Days is FDA-approved and is now offered in schools, with snacks also available on their website.
Priya’s journey is a reminder that determination and purpose can make a lasting impact.
Neha Negandhi is a Mental Health Strategist, Certified Life Coach, TEDx speaker and Talk Show host. Visit her website for upcoming mental wellbeing events and more NehaNegandhi.com
