I met my friend Mr Vikas Punjabi who stay in Sydney only, we both started searching the brands in Australia to bring Indian markets in that process we found a ‘the chocolate room’ brand and started out first chocolate café in Ahmedabad in the year of 2007.
Please tell us something about your early days & career story.
I was born & bought up in Vijayawada, I was always an average student, my childhood was not that interesting, we are from a lower-middle-class family & we started life & studies without any vision but I always had the ambition to become rich and live a lavish life.
That is where I started to focus on studies and wanted to be an engineer then went to Australia for my master’s for a better career life. Once I stepped into Australia, I started focusing more on money-making rather than on studies, within a week I found a part-time job in a supermarket and along with that started repairing computers for international students to get more side income.
I am a certified A+ hardware engineer. Then slowly I got a thought to start assembling the computers from the second-hand peripherals to sell the computers to the students at an economical price. I also did the door-knocking for mobile selling by getting the commissions.
Why did you decide to be in the food industry?
Actually, from my childhood I was a food lover and always wanted to taste different items, In Australia, there were many international food restaurants and many QSR chains. Over there I always used to always taste & try new things/dishes, I then came to India in the year of 2006 to research the Indian market at that time and had been to all the 7 major cities, visited coffee shops and went to a lot of QSR chains. It was then only that all the international brands were opening in aggressive mode, one day in Hyderabad first McDonalds store was opening and there was a long queue, nearly an hour waiting time was there to reach the counters to place your orders. It was then when I realised the demand for food businesses in India.
There is a lot of wastage in the food industry, what according to you is the solution to that?
As we are in a café industry, wastage is very nominal, we usually prepare as per customers order bases. Our menu is designed in that particular manner which can be made on time. That’s where our wastage is around 2-3%.
How do you leverage software & technologies for business efficiency?
In today’s market software, technology has taken a wider role, to generate and spread the new business to the world sooner. This is the first time in hundred years that the retail industry was completely closed down and the business continued through technology route.
What is your favourite book & why?
My favourite book is Death: an inside story, I started reading this book recently during pandemic and this is the book where you will come to know about spirituality and your inner integration and lot about yourself, what you are, what can you do, why I came to this earth…these are the questions that should be raised by you in order to get to know more about yourself. And, the ultimate destiny for anyone is death.
What are your future plans?
15 years of rich experience in the café industry. My vision is to create a big empire and continuously create employment. The cafe industry is the most emerging in India. We are planning to open more stores by exploring many more cities in India. And already have 300+ stores across Pan India and in 11 countries presently. We plan to open another 200 stores in Tier 2 & 3 cities, infact we are planning to take the brand into every small city to create a new chocolate culture.
How do you manage the suppliers and inventory management?
We have a pre-fix of suppliers from day one which we take into our flows, today the logistics has been improvised in Pan India. We have the logistics tie-ups which are playing the most in the digital/ virtual area.
I then started a small direct marketing company and hired all the international students and took them on one car to the regional cities for the door knocking to sell them brand new assembled computers, we then got a huge response and started selling computers monthly 100+ computers and made a big company in Australia in the name of KITS corporation Pvt. Ltd. Direct marketing always has to change the products to generate revenues. I then stared thinking about coming back home country to do something big in the food business & in that process I met my friend Mr Vikas Punjabi who stay in Sydney only, we both started searching the brands in Australia to bring Indian markets in that process we found a ‘the chocolate room’ brand and started out first chocolate café in Ahmedabad in the year of 2007.
Why did you decide to be in the food industry?
Actually, from my childhood I was a food lover and always wanted to taste different items, In Australia, there were many international food restaurants and many QSR chains. Over there I always used to always taste & try new things/dishes, I then came to India in the year of 2006 to research the Indian market at that time and had been to all the 7 major cities, visited coffee shops and went to a lot of QSR chains. It was then only that all the international brands were opening in aggressive mode, one day in Hyderabad first McDonalds store was opening and there was a long queue, nearly an hour waiting time was there to reach the counters to place your orders. It was then when I realised the demand for food businesses in India.
That’s where my partner & I made a decision to come back to India to start the chocolate cafe business as our first store was launched in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. We both created the menu as per the Indian market, and to attract all kinds of age groups. We started with different styles of chocolate specifications including items like Hot Beverages, Cold Beverages, Chocolate cakes, pastries, chocolate sizzlers, Hot Chocolate, Burger, Pizza, Pasta, Panino, Waffles, Pancakes, Sandwiches, etc.,
What are some of the day-to-day business challenges that you face & how do you overcome them?
The pandemic has taught us many things, usually, every business will have many challenges to face that’s where you come to know how strongly you take a stand and solve the thing. The cafe care industry is an emerging industry in India, where you don’t make any bottoms, but positive, passion, patience will not bring any stress.
What are some of the day-to-day business challenges that you face & how do you overcome them?
The pandemic has taught us many things, usually, every business will have many challenges to face that’s where you come to know how strongly you take a stand and solve the thing. The cafe care industry is an emerging industry in India, where you don’t make any bottoms, but positive, passion, patience will not bring any stress.
We always work as a normal employee, when we worked in our first café, we understood the business very well & we were able to place the systems and hired a wonderful team. We always monitor continuously.
Moreover, we have given good enough free hands to our team; the second layer team who worked with us on our first café.
In this way our day-to-day business challenges become easy.
For the last 2 years, we were facing difficulties in our industry due to a virus. We are the first-generation entrepreneurs, in that way again we remember our initial days working on a ground level to overcome the situations.
There is a lot of wastage in the food industry, what according to you is the solution to that?
As we are in a café industry, wastage is very nominal, we usually prepare as per customers order bases. Our menu is designed in that particular manner which can be made on time. That’s where our wastage is around 2-3%.
How do you leverage software & technologies for business efficiency?
In today’s market software, technology has taken a wider role, to generate and spread the new business to the world sooner. This is the first time in hundred years that the retail industry was completely closed down and the business continued through technology route.
We ran the business through food delivery aggregators Swiggy, Zomato during lockdown times. F&B Industry will continue to flourish through technology route, we have also developed TCR cloud café food tech platform, the massive revolution will happen in this food & beverages industry.
What is your favourite book & why?
My favourite book is Death: an inside story, I started reading this book recently during pandemic and this is the book where you will come to know about spirituality and your inner integration and lot about yourself, what you are, what can you do, why I came to this earth…these are the questions that should be raised by you in order to get to know more about yourself. And, the ultimate destiny for anyone is death.
What are your future plans?
15 years of rich experience in the café industry. My vision is to create a big empire and continuously create employment. The cafe industry is the most emerging in India. We are planning to open more stores by exploring many more cities in India. And already have 300+ stores across Pan India and in 11 countries presently. We plan to open another 200 stores in Tier 2 & 3 cities, infact we are planning to take the brand into every small city to create a new chocolate culture.
We have a pre-fix of suppliers from day one which we take into our flows, today the logistics has been improvised in Pan India. We have the logistics tie-ups which are playing the most in the digital/ virtual area.
Once it is booked online, we deliver with the best quality door delivery across Pan India of our Franchise stores. Talking about the inventories, we have our customized TCR software where we encrypt our all-ingredients usages in the software to check in our dashboard how the food cost is placed.
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