Bangalore: An MBA, she sells masalas

Does MBA always imply sitting in corporate offices and chalking out strategies for MNCs? Perhaps not. Chanda Agarwal, for one, is using her MBA knowledge about recruitment, training, sales, marketing, operations and finance in roasting and grounding spices and masalas.

She not just hires and trains her staff, but also manages the finance, sources ingredients, and goes about selling her chilli, turmeric, coriander and cumin powders. Using her two-storey house in BTM Layout as factory-cum-office, Agarwal is structuring her month-old venture, Riddhi Siddhi Traders.

Branding her masalas ‘RST’, the mother of two is focused on making it a household name in the city. A brand that can stand neck and neck on retail shelves with the likes of MTR, Everest and MDH. “I realised that good quality homemade masalas are not easily available. And foodies who are particular about ingredients are always on the lookout for such spices,” says Agarwal.  

Investing her savings, she started visiting Byadgi and Guntur to source chillies, and places in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh for the coriander seeds, cumin and turmeric.

Buying whole spices from their places of origin guarantees quality, she says.
Roping in her cook Manju, she next went about recruiting other women working as cooks, who were also interested in getting an additional income.

“Making masalas is not just about grounding, but also involves roasting and exposing the spices to sunlight. Then there is packaging and distribution. All this requires able hands.” Her team of six work in the afternoons, earning about Rs150 every 4 hours of work.

Next comes sales. Being a small venture rules out investing in advertising. So Agarwal and her women go door-to-door in BTM, Jayanagar, JP Nagar, Bannerghatta Road, creating awareness and convincing people to buy. Within this month, they have sold about 1,500 packets to households.

Next is increasing customer base. This means approaching 5-star hotels and retail outlets to buy and store RST packets in bulk. “I plan to hold cookery shows in apartment blocks, where participants could use RST spices in dishing out a menu. That way more people can develop a taste for our brand,” she says.

As part of expansion, RST will add black pepper and cardamom to its portfolio, while going online with sales.

Agarwal also plans to take up a warehouse around Yeshwantpur to make and sell to areas in North Bangalore. “It is difficult to reach out to people there from BTM.”