Papad is a popular cracker from the Indian sub-continent and a staple side-dish with every Indian meal. Given the diversity of India, you can find different flavors of papad ranging from mango to cumin! When it comes to the producers of this dish, the Lijjat papad brand is one of the most well-known brands.
“Create a community that works for women by the women”
Initial days
It was started by 7 women in Mumbai, who wanted to supplement their household income back in 1959. They were not well-educated and so they thought of creating a product that could be made at home without a lot of investment. They borrowed an initial capital of Rs. 80 at the time from their mentor and started manufacturing these on the terrace of their building. They sold these to a known merchant. Their mentor emphasized on the quality of the product so that they are uniform in size and taste. In their 1st year, they made Rs. 6196 by selling papads. It was a great success. However, in the 1st year, they had to stop the production of the papad for the 4 rainy season months because of the lashing Mumbai rains. (Papads have to be dried and a common household practice is to dry them out in the sun). The next year, they solved their problem by bringing in a stove and cot where they could dry the papads. They used word-of-mouth publicity and marketed their products. Soon, without any effort, the local newspapers started writing about them. They tried to open a few branches outside of Mumbai but were not so successful. In 1966, it registered itself as a society and it was declared as a village industry. They received a seed funding of Rs. 182000 (a huge amount at the time). They expanded in the neighboring state of Gujarat and expanded their offerings to include other products like khakra, masala, flour – all staple to Indian meals. They had a few failures along the way – like incense sticks, cottage leather.
Product learning – Initial days
- BETA testing of your product – This shows you the
value of BETA! You get to test your offering with a small audience to
begin with before you open it up for all.
- These women were strapped for cash initially but they started small with local people tasting their products.
- BETA testing revealed the 2 challenges they had to be able to scale – consistency in their product (in terms of size and taste) and the rains being a factor to manufacture their product all-year round.
- Don’t be afraid of failures and keep developing your
niche –
- The additional branches were not profitable in the earlier years because the organization didn’t have the scale.
- The other products they dabbled into were not their niche but they kept evolving their meal offerings.
Scaling over the years
With increasing demand, they added flour mills, printing and packing divisions. They participated in fairs and promoted their products. They had give-away gifts and sponsored contests on local television shows. Lijjat’s success attracted foreign investors, who wanted to import Lijjat’s products to their countries. It also inspired other countries like Uganda to start their own cottage industries.
The interesting thing about Lijjat’s management is that all women employees are equal partners. There is transparency maintained about the finances so that there is no conflict. In today’s day of automation, Lijjat stays true to its ethos. It’s goal has always been to empower women financially.
Women still make the products at home despite Lijjat being spread out in different states in India (As of 2022, they have about 82 branches). They are committed to quality as well. They source the raw materials from one place so that there is no difference in taste. They test their products in a lab before they are ready for sale. There is a monitoring committee of 21 people. There are surprise inspections in the homes, where these products are made to ensure that proper hygiene is maintained.
Over the years, they faced challenges where there were imposters selling fake Lijjat products. While the imposters were caught, it still posed brand challenges.
The organization has always stayed away from extravagant celebrations, celebrities etc. They just had one very well-made commercial with the bunny rabbit as the mascot, which people remember till date. This doesn’t have celebrities urging you to buy the product. This is a perfect example of how the product speaks for itself. They still prefer word-of-mouth publicity and thrived on minimalism.
Product learning – Scaling
- Product vision – The vision of Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat (one of the 7 founders) was to create a community that works “for women by the women”. A great product vision can help you make decisions when you are stuck. In this case, when Lijjat became a runaway success, it would have been very easy to automate all the workflows, leaving the women out of a job. They didn’t do that and instead focused on how they could realize it.
- Product strategy – To realize the vision, the organization decided to automate some of the flows like quality testing and made smart changes in their workflows like sourcing raw materials from a single source.
- Product marketing – From the very beginning, the marketing theme of this organization has been word-of-mouth, participating in trade fairs to promote the product. They stayed away from celebrities but instead created an ad (with a bunny rabbit mascot and devoid of celebrities), which is still nostalgic.
- What happens when your product vision and strategy are
aligned? –
- Strong brand identity – With the advent of COVID, a lot of industries opened up remote work. Lijjat has been acing work-from-home since 1959. It is strongly associated with women empowerment. It offers social assistance to women as well, which makes it a preferred employer and make people want to buy their products because you are supporting women empowerment when you buy their product.
- You can still make money – As of 2022, Lijjat employs 45000 women throughout India, selling 4 billion papads annually and has a turnover of Rs. 1600 crore!
Closing thoughts
It started off with 7 women wanting to have sustainable income and as of 2022, it is a case study of one of the most successful and clean businesses in India! The founder, Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat was awarded the Padmashri (India’s 4th highest civilian honor) award in Nov 2021 for her journey as an entrepreneur.
Learn more about the organization here!