How AAJI's perfected Whole Foods-ready packaging with Pai

AAJI's was founded in 2021 by Rajus and Poorva Korde, built on a tomato lonsa recipe from Rajus's grandmother. Lonsa is a coastal Indian condiment of simmered tomatoes, garlic, chilies, and spices. “Aaji” means grandmother in Marathi, and the business is a family affair in the deepest sense. Rajus's mother Vijoo, father Arvind, and brother Ashwin are all involved.

They built the brand the hard way. Sixty recipes tested with neighbors during the pandemic, years at Philadelphia farmers markets, Weavers Way, regional co-ops, and then Whole Foods. When AAJI's was named a Whole Foods All Star, selected as the only local emerging brand out of roughly 4,000, the platform was set for a multi-state expansion.

The challenge was attracting customers — introducing lonsa to American shoppers without Rajus and Poorva there to explain it. For years at farmers markets and demos, they'd been the ones bringing the product to life, sharing the recipe, the region, the family behind it. In a Whole Foods aisle, the package had to carry that story and draw shoppers in on its own.

That's when Rajus came to Pai.

Lock new front-of-pack messaging for AAJI's Tomato Lonsa in 3 weeks, ahead of the Whole Foods expansion into CT, NY, and NJ. The package needed to communicate what lonsa is, how to use it, and why to pick it up — all in the three seconds a shopper spends scanning the shelf.

Pai built a panel of digital twins of AAJI's target shopper: dips and spreads buyers at Whole Foods locations across the Northeast. With the panel in place, Rajus worked through the full messaging hierarchy — brand, product name, usage language, descriptors. He moved question by question, testing and iterating as quickly as decisions came up.

Using Pai's self-serve interface, Rajus could ask questions of his audience instantly and run full packaging tests on demand. Rather than being confined to a point-in-time study, he could keep iterating, asking follow-up questions to go deeper and refining based on what he learned.

Rajus confidently went to print on new packaging slated to launch in dozens of Whole Foods locations. With Pai, Rajus was able to get deep insights about his audience at a fraction of what traditional shopper research would have cost.