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Taking on burgers, the desi way
Posted on December 31, 2010 | View 827 | Comment : 2
Minds behind Goli Vada Pav take Mumbai's local snack pan India.
Running a business selling vada pav might seem like a simple idea. But entrepreneurs S Venkatesh and Shivadas Menon are making around 75,000 vada pavs with hands-free technology per day, with each of them going through metal detectors and x-ray machines to maintain hygiene and taste. It is this innovation on which their firm Goli Vada Pav has grown to a Rs 15-crore business.
Equipped with two decades of experience in corporate finance, Menon and Venkatesh started from a single outlet at Kalyan near Mumbai in 2004, and built their venture to a national ethnic fast-food powerhouse with a retro Bollywood theme.
“Vada pav itself is such a powerful name, like Bollywood celebrity Amitabh Bachchan, in Mumbai. It is a mobile food and can be taken anywhere,” said Venkatesh, who used to work in the corporate field before taking the detour.
Vada pav is a ubiquitous fast food dish native to the Indian state of Maharashtra. With main ingredients being potato and bread, it looks like a burger. It was supposedly devised by snack vendor Ashok Vaidya outside Dadar station, Mumbai in the 70s.
Goli, which offers a range of vada pavs including palak makai tikki, cheese vada pav, veg cutlet pav, schezwan vada pav and aloo tikki pav, has proved to be a big earner. Goli has sold over 3.5 crore such vada pavs in the last six years, priced between 10 and 30.
The company has tied-up with Vista Processed Foods, a subsidiary of US-based OSI, to make vada pavs. OSI also makes burgers for the McDonald chain worldwide and around one lakh patties everyday in its plant at Taloja, near Mumbai.
The fryer machine that Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute engineers designed for Goli prepares pavs with the touch of a button. Vadas made at fully-automated hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) certified hands-free plant are frozen at -18 degree Celsius and packed and set to the outlets.
The standardised vada pav has a shelf life of nine months and can be exported. At the Goli outlets, these vada pavs are unpacked, deep-fried and served, with various kinds of stuffings.
“Around 70% of our customers are young Indians and we do a lot of marketing activities to keep them engaged with us,” said Venkatesh.
Some of these brand-building efforts include public procession of Lord Ganesha with vada pav, vada pav songs at the stores and Goli Rock Shows. The firm has attracted over 17,665 fans on social networking website Facebook.
However, it was not an easy journey for the entrepreneurs. By the time Venkatesh erected his small outlet, selling vada, tea and some other snacks like samosas, he had logged a number of failed attempts to set up Goli vada pav kiosks on the footpaths of Mumbai.
After receiving a funding of 4.5 crore in 2007 from a high networth individual, Goli was able to scale up the business. Goli, which has sold the product purely through word-of-mouth publicity, has been able to open 100 franchise stores in cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune.
The other locations in Maharashtra include Nasik Dhule, Shirdi, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, and Jalna.
“Indians crave for ethnic food. It is a big market, but disorganised, which makes it a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs if they are able to take care of quality, health, cost and people who are part of the supply chain,” says Dr Krishna Tanuku, executive director at Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, Indian School of Business.
Goli is now planning a massive expansion by opening around 500 outlets pan-India is eyeing a nearly 10-fold jump in its turnover to 180 crore over the next five-years.
It will also scout for partners in Dubai, the UK as well as Singapore. Initially the plan is to raise a venture capital funding of 40 crore in next few months to scale up its operations.
“We are now getting offers from both venture capitalists (VCs) as well as some large Indian corporate houses to buy our stake. But we are looking for right opportunity and timing,” said Venkatesh.
Data collated by ICICI Bank said that the Indian agricultural and food business is expected to double to $280 billion in next decade. There is an opportunity of private investments up to $50 billion by that time.
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Comments (2)
- mujha goli vada pav ke ajnece chhiya
Posted by prakashtupe | 07 Jun, 2011
- Hats off to the spirit of ingenious indian entrepreneurs.....
Posted by sangeetha | 31 Dec, 2010
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