Namrata Sundaresan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Namrata Sundaresan
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	cook and entrepreneur
Known for	winning the Nari Shakti Puraskar

Namrata Sundaresan is an Indian social entrepreneur, a chef, and a cheesemaker. A social entrepreneur is someone who starts a business to solve a social problem. She is known for winning the 2017 Nari Shakti Puraskar award with her friend Anuradha Krishnamoorthy. This award is one of the highest honors for women in India.

Her Journey to Cheesemaking

Namrata Sundaresan was born in Odisha, a state in India. After she got married, she moved to Chennai in Tamil Nadu. She started her career by creating an international consulting agency.

Later, Namrata learned how to make cheese in Coonoor. She then talked with her friend, Anuradha Krishnamoorthy, about starting a business. They decided to become cheesemakers and wanted to help women with disabilities by giving them jobs.

Together, they created a company called Käse. Käse makes special, handmade cheeses. Because their business helped people and made a positive difference, they won the Nari Shakti Puraskar award for 2017. They received this important award on International Women's Day in 2018. The President of India presented the award on behalf of the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

A Passion for Cooking

Namrata Sundaresan is also a self-taught chef. This means she learned to cook on her own, without going to a special cooking school. In 2017, she started cooking Peruvian food for a "supper club." A supper club is like a special dinner event where people gather to eat unique meals. Arundhati Balachandran and Suneethi Raj of LocalXO organized these events.

In 2019, Namrata took her cheeses to the Gourmet Bazaar in Coimbatore. By 2020, she had cooked for 25 different dinner events. She and the group planned to start a new series where Namrata would cook dishes from her favorite cookbooks.