Restaurant India News: Bettrlabs Partners VR Food Tech to Streamline Product R&D for F&B Brands

Bettrlabs has launched labs.new, an AI-native product development platform designed for food, nutraceutical, wellness, and personal care brands, while also announcing a strategic partnership with VR Food Tech for scientific validation and pilot-batch execution.

The platform is positioned as an operating layer for brands managing product development across different models, including in-house R&D teams, contract manufacturers, and external formulation partners. The system combines formulation management, compliance tracking, sourcing, costing, and Product Passports into a single workflow supported by what the company describes as a persistent Brand DNA layer.

The launch reflects the growing shift toward technology-driven product innovation as operators look to shorten development cycles and reduce dependency on fragmented vendor ecosystems.

Product development in food and wellness categories has traditionally involved multiple third-party partners, often leading to delays, repeated formulation work, and higher operational costs. Bettrlabs said labs.new is structured as a versioned and queryable system that allows brands to generate manufacturer-ready specifications, monitor regulatory and costing changes in real time, and maintain an ongoing record of product iterations.

According to the company, earlier workflows handled by Bettrlabs have already supported more than 380 brands, generated over 1,000 product concepts, and helped develop 20+ products through pilot-batch stages, while maintaining a 96 percent first-pass regulatory clearance rate. The company said this operational traction will now move under the labs.new platform.

“Most teams today build products in parts, with visibility only arriving late in the process,” said JP Mohanty, Co-founder and CEO, Bettrlabs. “labs.new puts formulation, compliance, cost and execution on a single layer — and we built it so it works regardless of where R&D actually sits. A founder with no R&D team can use it. A brand working with a contract manufacturer can use it. An FMCG R&D function can plug it into how they already operate. Our partnership with VR Food Tech deepens the scientific execution layer behind that.”

“Product development often breaks down at the seam between formulation and scalable execution,” said N. Ramasubramanian, Director, VR Food Tech. “Working with Bettrlabs, scientific validation and pilot testing sit inside the same workflow as the formulation itself — which makes the path from concept to manufacturable product significantly cleaner for brands.”

As part of the collaboration, VR Food Tech will support scientific testing and pilot-batch execution within the labs.new ecosystem, allowing manufacturing feedback and formulation validation to be integrated directly into the development workflow.

The development comes as India’s nutraceutical market is projected to cross USD 18 billion, driven by increasing demand for health-focused and functional products. At the same time, a growing number of emerging food and wellness brands continue to operate without dedicated in-house R&D infrastructure, increasing demand for integrated product development systems.

Bettrlabs, incubated at IIT Madras and part of programs run by Google for Startups and AWS Activate, has raised nearly Rs 1 crore in early-stage funding from angel and institutional investors. The company also plans to expand into international markets following the rollout of labs.new.