A quintessential Bengali sweet gets patronage down south. | |
| A Bengali and his rossogolla (rasgulla to all others) are not to be parted. And the name that has become almost synonymous with the rosogolla is KC Das. Some say it was Nabin Chandra Das, the great-grandfather of the present generation Dases, who first made the rossogolla. |
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| Some may contest that but there can be no contesting the fact that KC Das was definitely the first to tin the sweetmeat in 1930 "" an innovation that went a long way in popularising the sweetmeat beyond West Bengal. |
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| Priced out of its traditional bastion in Bengal by small neighbourhood sweets shops, the company is seeing a growing appetite for its sweets in south India, especially Bangalore. |
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| In fact, it is KC Das' Bangalore operations that is ensuring its survival. It was in 1972 that Sarada Charan Das "" the man who fashioned KC Das' transformation into a modern company "" opened a manufacturing and R&D unit in the southern city, to get away from the restrictive Milk Trade Control Order of 1967. |
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| Last year the city store, along with its nine franchisees, clocked a turnover of Rs 5.5 crore (10 per cent of this were profits) compared to the Rs 4 crore grossed from Kolkata. |
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| "The buying capacity of people in Bangalore is far higher than that here," says Dhiman Das, director, K C Das. Indeed, it is fresh sweets that sell the most in the garden city, while in Kolkata it is the tinned variety. |
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| As Barid Kar, KC Das' chief executive, rues, "Who will pay Rs 6 for our rossogollas, when they can get it far cheaper and nearer to their homes?" This disparity is reflected in the production too "" the Bangalore unit can make 100 tins a day, whereas in Kolkata 800 tins are churned out every day. |
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| No wonder then that tinned rosogollas is where Das sees his prospects for growth. "The demand has been growing every year, especially from our kiosks at the Howrah Station. We have increased our production commensurately "" just three years ago it was 300 tins a day. We now plan to increase it to 1,200 tins." |
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| But even here, Das' options are limited by the short, six month shelf life of a tin of rossogollas. That also rules out any bid to tap the export market in a serious way. At the moment only sporadic exports take place to Western countries. |
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| Expansion in the western and northern regions within the country too is stymied by the paucity of the key ingredient "" cow milk. |
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| But in the current diamond jubilee of its existence, KC Das is planning to spread its wings in its growth market "" south India. A new store opens in Mysore later this month and a few store are planned in Chennai in the next couple of months. |
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| Also on the anvil is a plant outside Bangalore "" where everything from milking to manufacturing to packaging "" will be fully automated. |
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| "We have already had expressions of interest from investors and dairies in the city," says BN Das, who runs the Bangalore works. A new pack size of four rosogollas is also being unveiled. |
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| As palates are wooed by luscious ladoos and creamy cakes, it remains to be seen how far KC Das can take the rossogolla. |
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