iD Fresh Offers Employees Up to 18 Months' Paid Sabbatical to Start Businesses

iD Fresh Food will pay selected employees part of their salary for up to 18 months while they launch their own businesses, under a new entrepreneurship policy the company has launched for its workforce.

The Bengaluru-based food company's policy targets employees it judges to have entrepreneurial potential. Depending on their level within the organisation, they can take a part-paid sabbatical of up to 18 months. The scheme covers ventures built both within the iD Fresh ecosystem and outside it, fully independent of the company.

What does the policy actually include?

The support package goes beyond money. According to the company, employees accepted into the programme receive several forms of backing:

• Mentorship from internal leaders at iD Fresh
• Access to the company's industry and investor networks
• Selective infrastructure and brand support to turn ideas into functioning businesses
• A part-paid sabbatical that lets them step away from their roles while keeping some financial support

The return pathway is the policy's most distinctive feature. Employees who finish their entrepreneurial attempt can come back to iD Fresh rather than face a permanent career break. The company frames this as letting staff explore business ownership without having to resign outright.

Who is behind the scheme?

P.C. Musthafa, global CEO and chairman of iD Fresh Food, said: "The policy aims to identify employees with entrepreneurial potential and provide them with the confidence, mentorship and ecosystem to build ethical businesses."

The emphasis on "ethical businesses" signals the company's intent to shape the ventures it helps create, not merely to fund them. Musthafa's statement is the clearest articulation of what iD Fresh wants out of the programme: a pipeline of founders who carry the parent company's values into new markets.

Has this worked at iD Fresh before?

The policy formalises a pattern that already exists among the company's alumni. Several former iD Fresh employees have gone on to build their own companies, and the new policy cites them as proof of concept:

• Daily Fresh Foods, founded in Assam
• I Made in Mangalore, a venture on India's west coast
• A1 Snacks, based in Bengaluru
• A chapati manufacturing business in Bengaluru founded by Jasper Prince, a former employee

These four businesses span food manufacturing and snacks, suggesting the entrepreneurial drift has stayed close to iD Fresh's own territory of fresh Indian food products. The company now wants to encourage that tendency deliberately rather than lose talent through informal exits.

Why would a food company fund its own competition?

iD Fresh's reasoning, as stated in the policy announcement, is that professional growth doesn't have to mean climbing the corporate ladder. Starting a business can count as growth too. By supporting independent ventures, the company says it wants to spur entrepreneurship broadly and, with it, the creation of new businesses and employment opportunities.

There's also a retention logic at work. The 18-month sabbatical with a guaranteed route back gives would-be founders a safety net that resignation doesn't. An employee weighing a startup no longer faces a binary choice between a paycheck and a punt — they can attempt both, with partial income and mentorship intact.

The scope of the sabbatical — up to 18 months, scaled by employee level — makes it one of the more generous schemes of its kind in India's food sector, though iD Fresh hasn't disclosed the exact pay percentage employees retain during the break.

What happens next?

The programme's success will show in its selection process and its alumni list. If the policy produces ventures on the scale of Daily Fresh Foods or A1 Snacks — companies already founded by former staff without structured support — iD Fresh will have turned informal attrition into a repeatable engine for new business formation.