Slurrp, the food platform from HT Labs, marked Teachers’ Day with a nostalgia-led outreach initiative across four Delhi schools, using familiar school-day treats to open conversations with teachers about their own years as students.
Carried out with the HT PACE team, the initiative reached Ahlcon International School and Ahlcon Public School in Mayur Vihar, and Flora Dales Senior Secondary School and St. Lawrence Public School in Dilshad Garden.
The selection favoured recognition over novelty. The mix included Mango Bite, Coffee Bite, Poppins, Gems, Melody, Kismi, Rola Cola, Magic Pops, Nutties, a small Dairy Milk bar and Parle-G — the kind of treats once bought with pocket money, traded between classmates or handed round on birthdays. Every bag carried the same note: “A little taste of your childhood — for those who shape childhoods every day. Thank you, Teacher.”
From a simple gesture to a larger Slurrp idea
At the heart of the initiative was a simple thought: give teachers a bag of the treats that once made up their own school-day memories, and see where that memory takes the conversation.
“‘Give a teacher a bag of their childhood’ was the simple thought at the heart of this initiative. We wanted, above all, to say thank you. Our teachers play such an important role in shaping who we become — long before we are professionals, they help form our curiosity, confidence and values. Food has a remarkable ability to bring back memories, and we thought that a small bag filled with familiar tastes from their school days could bring back a little of their own childhood. It was a modest gesture of nostalgia, but one made with a great deal of gratitude and affection,” said Avinash Mudaliar, Co-founder and CEO, HT Labs.
The idea also reflects the potential of food-led experiences to create meaningful brand engagements. Familiar products and childhood favourites can become natural conversation starters, giving brands an opportunity to participate in culturally relevant, community-led moments rather than simply communicating through conventional formats.
What the bags brought back
At the schools, the bags opened up a series of short conversations.
Asked which item was their favourite, teachers named Poppins, Gems, Kismi, Coffee Bite, Magic Pops and Parle-G, among others. The answers moved quickly past preference. One teacher remembered sharing a five-rupee pack with her siblings. Another recalled the toffees friends exchanged on birthdays.
From there, the questions moved from the treats to the teachers who had shaped them: who was your favourite teacher, and what do you still remember about them? The answers included favourite mathematics and social studies teachers, lessons about the value of practice, and memories of teachers who formed close bonds with their students.
The progression was the point. A familiar wrapper recalled a flavour first, then a sibling or school friend, and finally a teacher they had not forgotten. The treats were not the subject of the conversation so much as the route into it.
Building the story around the encounter
The content architecture followed the life of the gesture itself: preparation, journey, arrival, discovery and conversation.
The resulting film follows the bags from assembly to arrival before yielding to the teachers’ own answers. The material was conceived to travel across formats: a central film, shorter social edits, photography and longer-form editorial storytelling.
For Slurrp, the initiative demonstrates how on-ground experiences can create a larger storytelling ecosystem — with real-world encounters feeding editorial and social content. It also presents a replicable format for brands looking to build authentic associations around food, nostalgia, gratitude and community.
The gesture was deliberately simple. It was not presented as an answer to larger questions about how teachers are recognised, supported or rewarded. Its premise was narrower: that gratitude can be personal, culturally familiar and free of transaction.
Slurrp truly acknowledges the teachers who allowed a bag of familiar treats to reopen stories from their own school years.
