Harsh Mariwala, Marico Founder and Chairman
The private sector can help normalise alternatives when it treats them not as fringe products, but as the next chapter of everyday nutrition, said Harsh Mariwala, Marico Founder and Chairman, at the launch of India Karuna Collaborative (IKC) – an initiative that looks to integrate animal welfare with the country’s climate, public health, and economic development agenda.
“If we believe that animal wellbeing is part of India’s health, climate and food security future, then we must also build the markets and products that make humane choices easier, affordable and mainstream,” said Mariwala, a mentor to IKC.
“The IKC is not asking India to simply care more. It is asking India to design better, so that care becomes embedded in how we produce, consume, regulate and innovate,” he said, pointing out that for years animal welfare has been spoken about in the language of compassion, often focusing on the visible crises. “But the largest suffering remains invisible: the everyday, industrial cruelty baked into food systems at massive scale,” he said.
Invisible by design
What makes the interconnected crisis hard to address is that much of it is invisible by design, said Motilal Oswal, Founder and Managing Director, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, and also mentor to IKC. “We measure the output of milk, eggs, meat, but we don’t measure pain. And yet, the scale of the pain is staggering: India’s farmed animal population includes hundreds of millions of hens and bovines, millions of goats, sheep, pigs, — and trillions of fishes,” he said.
Gauri Maulekhi, Trustee, People for Animals, pointed out, that nearly 70 per cent of the world’s antibiotics are used in animal agriculture, largely because animals are kept in intensive, crowded conditions where disease spreads easily. “From antibiotic-laden feed for farmed animals to practices like sewage-fed fish farming seen in parts of India, antibiotics are increasingly used to sustain industrial food production. While this system keeps costs low, the long-term price is far higher, accelerating antimicrobial resistance and the emergence of deadly superbugs.”
Calling for cross-sectoral action, Amala Akkineni, Founder, Blue Cross of Hyderabad, said, “At the heart of the problem lies an exploitative approach towards animals and nature..” A change in mindset is needed for lasting solutions, she added.
As meat production and antibiotic use rise, the economic and public health costs could be enormous, said Sanjiv Mehta, Executive Chairman of L Catterton India. “Businesses have a responsibility to build supply chains with purpose — applying the same ethics, transparency, and sustainability standards that we bring to brands,” he said.
According to data from a nationally representative survey commissioned by IKC, “70 per cent of participants believe farmed animals are sentient beings who experience suffering. It also found that 69 per cent of dairy consumers and more than 50 per cent of meat and egg consumers are willing to pay 10 per cent or more for products with higher animal welfare standards, and that 53 per cent are open to replacing some or all animal protein with plant-based options.”
Published on March 11, 2026