CHANDUBHAI VIRANI

Owner of Balaji Wafer

INTRODUCTION

Chandubhai Virani is the co-founder and the current owner along with brother Bhikabhai as Chairman and Kanubhai as Technical Director of Balaji Wafers at Rajkot (Gujarat). At the early years he had given up his education at 17 years and followed his brother’s path to the business word.

By March 2013, the Balaji Wafer has sale of 65% stake in the market share and bring in $100-125 million (Rs. 600-725 crore) and market covering 5 states against major Multi-National Corporates.

He was recognized as one the “Entrepreneur of the Year” by many of the prestigious award ceremony.

KHARA NAMAK: SALT OF THE EARTHChandubhai Virani was born in Dhun Dhoraji village in the Kalavad taluk of Jamnagar

district.

He was with his father Popatbhai who was farmer, who sold his ancestral agricultural land and lend it to his sons Rs. 20,000 to lead them to start business and make a livelihood.

When Chandubhai was just 17 years old he followed his brother’s path to lend business at city. It was the time when Astron Cinema was just inaugurated in Rajkot. He and his brothers began to work for Cinema theatre in and out of the canteen supplying snacks, soft drinks, wafers etc to the cinema goers.

They worked hard to earn an income from the Cinema Theatre as they were the owners of the Theatre. Even the owner of the theatre was impressed by the effort of Chandubhai and his brothers and led them to start their canteen store with the Theatre on contract basis.

This paved a new dimension to the aspiring entrepreneurs they worked hard and made some money even though its insufficient to further expand the business.

While the business began to flourish they found their major sale was an item called wafers that used to be readymade packets. Chandubhai and his brothers had bought and sold these wafers from an outside manufacturer. They bought loose wafers and sold it independently this increased their income.

During 1970s they incorporated homemade sandwiches that too turned into profit which helped the brothers and Chandubhai to “make and sell” this strategie helped them to further make some products and sell them in the markets other than canteen stores.

In 1982, Viranis set up “tawa” at their home for making homemade potato chips which was packed and sold out in the packets in nearby shops. Initially payments from the merchant sellers and distributors was a hectic task, even Chandubhai himself has went to collect the payments.

With much hard work and determination they stayed in the business for some time which gained a reputation among the local merchants and distributors for their sincere effort to build an enterprise of their own.

When company started to earn some profits, Viranis decided to buy a rickshaw from their Oil merchants at loan and further they brought tempo for loan at State bank of India.

They installed huge machinery and plant amounting Rs. 50 lakh which produced 1000kg of chips every hour.

Through marketing strategy especially pricing strategy comprising the common by selling their products at cheaper price than its competitors especially multinational company like Pepsi, Lays etc.

Product diversification of local recipes into commercial sale helped to deepen the roots into the Indian Market to become a major player in the Indian market share.