Since the final years are going for their In-Plant Training from the next week, I thought of sharing some new real life stories about people who have made it big in the Food Industry to bring out the entrepreneur in them. As our 1st first feature we have the story of Aachi Foods from my/our own Tamil Nadu. Hope you all enjoy the feature and give your responses in the comments section below.
1. Aachi Foods — A Recipe for Growth
“Nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing my brands
stocked on the shop shelves,” says Mr Padmasingh Isaac, Founder
Chairman, Aachi Foods, to a question on what he does to unwind… his
hobbies?
If this is his idea of fun, he certainly must be a very happy man.
‘An Agent in Every Village'
In
just over a decade since 1998 the ‘Aachi' group of brands has grown to
over 160 products with plans to add even more. An agent network of about
3,500 across South India, ‘an agent in every village' ensures shelf
space in 10 lakh retail outlets.
“What more do I want in life?” he asks. Lots more, it becomes evident, as he shares his recipe for growth.
He
is in the process of making Aachi an umbrella brand to cover a range of
food products, just about everything that is found on the kitchen
shelves in any home.
More than three-fourths of the
Indian food industry is in the unorganised sector, unbranded and
commodity based. This is an opportunity to organise the unorganised and
integrate them, which is what Aachi Foods is doing, he says.
As
Mr Isaac sits in his office sharing his views on what the food
processing industry offers to the entrepreneurs, there is a continuous
stream of visitors – office staff consult him on pricing a new product,
he instructs another to dash of a letter to a supplier to make up his
mind.
There are over 5,000 food products that can
potentially be branded whether masalas, the spicy powders that go into
the making of mouth watering dishes, pickles, instant mixes that make
life easy for someone cooking… the list goes on, he says.
This
is one of the reasons that multinational companies are keen to enter
India, says Mr Isaac, as he veers off to launch a tirade against the
proposal to allow foreign direct investment into retail. “In India,
there are more vendors than office goers,” and each of them is an
entrepreneur. Foreign retailers will edge them out, he cautions.
The
Government should support the domestic food processing sector and
farmers both of which are crucial to the rural economy. Infrastructure
such as cold chain is needed; entrepreneurs have to be encouraged with
funding assistance and simplified procedures, he asserts.
Somebody
has to organise the domestic food sector, and it is not a job for one
person. Aachi Foods may have been conceived by one person but within a
few years he had realised that growth could be bigger if shared with
like minded individuals. Which is why he opted to outsource production
to other entrepreneurs, says Mr Isaac.
