A new serving for MTR Foods

MTR Foods traces its ancestry to the restaurant that started in Bangalore in 1924 as 'Brahmananara (Brahmin's) Coffee Club'. It was renamed Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (MTR) in 1951 and rechristened MTR Foods Ltd in 1997 with Sadananda Maiya as chairman and managing director.

Yajnanarayana Maiya, the founder, had a limited goal, to cater to upper caste Brahmins looking for wholesome, hygienic and tasty food.

Then in 1951 he went for a tour of Europe and came back to introduce sterilisation of utensils, opening the kitchen to visitors and listing the ingredients that went into the food, long before food labelling was mandated in the country.

Over time the MTR restaurant became a legend and a tourist attraction, standing for quality food, good taste and above all good value. This got it into trouble during the Emergency when the state government fixed the price of key food items.

MTR, by then run by son Sadananda Maiya, refused to compromise on quality, sold the food at the fixed price and published a daily ad in the papers indicated the loss incurred the previous day. After sustaining a daily loss of Rs 25,000 for 16 days it temporarily closed shop.

The next major landmark for the company and the food range that took its name all over the country was the launch of the ready-to-eat foods in 2001. The Defence Food Research Laboratory in Mysore sought to make it possible for the Indian forces in the Siachen glacier to get a taste of normal food and so developed the technology and the packaging whereby food would retain its taste and flavour despite the most adverse conditions.

When this technology was passed on for commercial use in 1998, Sadananda Maiya worked out improvements in the recipes and processes and waited a whole year to see if the technology's claim of a year's shelf life was legitimate.

What made MTR Foods distinctive was its uncompromising approach to quality while seeking to keep prices competitively. Its products are drawn from traditional knowledge, developed with the aid of modern technology and focused with an eye on changing lifestlyes.

Sadananda Maiya combines within himself the two key requirements of technology and passion for food and describes himself as a "chef-cum-engineer". He has himself developed some of the machines like those for processing spices.

Why did Maiya have to sell out? MTR Foods innovated and expanded but could not keep up with the times.

"MTR had increasingly lacked innovative products. It was surviving on the success of a few products and there was no internal technology available to introduce good products. MTR had a huge potential to grow in the instant food business. Instead of selling the company, the promoters could have brought in some technology partners and more professional managers to run the company," says an industry expert.