The Hindu Business Line : Food processing business: Maharashtra leads the way

While 60-70 per cent of all produced fruits and vegetables are processed worldwide, only two per cent of Indian production is similarly processed. The fast changing food consumption pattern in India and the arrival of several multinationals on the scene has emboldened the food processing industry to take a step ahead.

It all began when Mr Hukmichand Chordia was working as an attendant in a grocer’s shop in Pune, on a monthly salary of Rs 60, with which his wife found it difficult to make ends meet. So she started making powdered spices at home. Twenty-seven-year-old Ms Kamal Chordia’s speciality: garlic and onion spices, mixed with red chilli powder, based on her very own recipe.

“My husband used to wake up at five every morning. He would then cut several kilos of onions, personally picked by from the market,” she remembers. Husband away at work, Ms Kamal would roast and grind the spices with stone grinders, after which she would manually wrap them up in small packets of paper. Every evening, Mr Hukmichand would cycle around 20 km, selling them door-to-door.

For the first two years, they made and marketed between five and seven kg of powdered spices daily, earning about Rs 300 per month. “The idea was to make just enough so that the fresh, home-made spices could be completely sold on the same day. This concept caught on very well,” says Mr Hukmichand.

In 1963, he hired a small shop and in the same year bought a flour mill to grind chilli powder.

By then, the couple had employed five women workers and production had reached some 40 kg of spices a day. Today, it is more than Rs 100 crore group.

Thirty-seven years later, the efforts of this enterprising husband-wife duo have translated into a successful business venture.

Under the Pravin brand name, it manufactures a range of packed spices, bottled pickles, jams, sauces and ethnic instant food pastes such as biryani paste and pay bhaji paste.

Manufactured at three plants in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are sold all over the country and even exported to the Gulf countries and the US.

The Chordia Group has provided the technology for food processing plants in Iraq and Tanzania. The group has also set up a food park with modern infrastructure situated at Shirwal, about 55 km from Pune, to cater to the food processing industry.

Bakery segment

Another success story is in the bakery segment, which is approximately a Rs 600-crore domestic market. And Baker’s Basket is a household name in many of the Puneites houses and enjoys a market share of around 55-60 per cent (in Pune market only).

Mr Rajendra Kelshikar and Mr Ravish Arora started Inn Venue Hospitality Management Pvt Ltd in 2002. They were behind the success of the Blue Diamond before it changed hands to Taj. Inn Venue bought Baker’s Basket from Blue Diamond, revamped and expanded it. Today Inn Venue manages the chain of ‘Baker’s Basket’, which currently has seven outlets (all managed by company) in different parts of Pune city.

It is planning to add three more outlets in the city taking the total number of Baker’s Basket outlets to 10. The company is now planning to expand to other important cities and exploring the option of franchising the brand. It would essentially look for an investor, who would be operationally involved in running the entire setup, adds Mr Kelshikar.

Inn Venue is expecting sales turnover of Rs 18 crore in the current financial year and would be expecting to grow by 20-25 per cent in the next fiscal. Out of Rs 18 crore for this financial year, Baker’s Basket would contribute up to Rs 6 crore.

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