Weekend

On this weekend, I am trying to cover entirely hatke topic. It is  a story of  one consumer product, and I  think in India there will be hardly  any person who has not heard about this product or should I say not tasted/eaten this product in his/her lifetime. Friends can you guess the name of this product——- the product is known as

Parle G     Biscuit

Parle G is one biscuit which has been associated with Indian lives from the days of pre independence. This was the first biscuit manufactured by an Indian company and was meant to be consumed by Indians. So let us go back to history of India of the pre independence era. It all first started with Candy, which was imported by the  British govt then ruling India. The Candy was consumed mostly by British and elite class, and it was out of the reach of common Indians as it was very expensive.  This thing was not liked by one person, who was involved with Swadeshi movement, and he thought why not make Candy in India for Indians at cheap rate, the person was Mohanlal Dayal Chauhan. He went to Germany to learn about how to make Candy. In 1929 he returned back to India with Candy making machine costing that time Rs 60,000. Although Mohanlal was doing the business of Rayon, along with that he started the Candy manufacturing business. He bought an old factory, not in operation, and there he set up the Candy manufacturing plant. Twelve of his family members were the initial workers/staff of the company. As they could not decide on the name of the company, Parle is shortened name of the area in Mumbai, which is known as Vile Parle, so the name of the factory became Parle Company, and the first product of this company was Parle Orange Candy. Soon it became very famous in Mumbai market, and they launched other flavours of Candy also.

There was one more product, which Britishers used to enjoy eating with tea , and that was biscuit. The biscuit was also imported and was out of the reach of common man,. So Mohanlal thought why not biscuit should also be made in India. So in 1939 he started making biscuits also in the same factory and named it as Parle Gluco. The main ingredient of the biscuit was of wheat. As compared to imported biscuits this biscuit was dirt cheap, and it’s taste was liked by everyone. Soon British also started consuming the same. Soon Parle Gluco became so famous that it was selling more than British biscuits. By the end of World War II, Parle Gluco had become a very big brand. But soon after war ended company had to stop the production of Parle Gluco, it was not due to that company was making loses and company did not have funds to manufacture Parle Gluco, the fact was there was too much shortage of wheat in India, and which continued even after India gaining the independence. Soon people started missing the product, which was also realised by the company. Company promised the people that very soon they will be back in production,  and which they did. And after that there was no stopping for this brand.

In the late 70s and early 80s, many new biscuit brands arrived in market and all started using word Gluco or Glucose with their name. As Gluco is arrived from Glucose and Parle did not have any copyright on it. So with advent of these new brands, there became confusion among consumers, which Gluco/Glucose  biscuit to eat. So Company decided to rename its biscuit and new name was Parle G. This name gave the new momentum to the product and it became empire by  itself. In 2003 Parle G became the largest selling biscuit in the world, and when in 2012 company announced that only Parle G has given a turnover of Rs 5000 Cr, then everybody in the biscuit industry was shocked. Even after that also sales is growing at regular pace. As per the company’s statement presently every year they are making more that 15,000 Crore Parle G Biscuits. Weight wise this figures come to approx 6 lac tons.

Pale G biscuit is available throughout the country through 60 lacs outlets. It is been also exported to so many countries in the world. A brand which was launched 80 years back, is still going strong in the market. Presently company has stopped the production in the their original plant at Vile Parle, Mumbai from where they started. Now they have manufacturing units at various places in the country, plus they even have franchised manufacturing units.

There is one more fact which people may not be  aware,  that Mohanlal’s one son Jayantilal Chauhan after independence ventured into Soft Drink business, this business started with Parle Orange, which later became Gold Spot. In the early 60s, Soft Drinks business got separated from biscuit business. Later Limca, Thums Up, Maaza etc were also launched by the Soft Drink Company, which were also totally successful Indian brands. But that is altogether a different success story.

So friends, how do you like this blog,

Please do communicate your views/ feed backs /comments, in the space provided  at the end of the blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

17^th May 2019