There are many success stories in India, especially of school or college dropouts who go on to form their own companies. Amid them, there are also stories of people who left their flourishing family businesses to create an identity for themselves. One such example is Shivratan Agarwal, the founder of Bikaji Foods, a leading Indian company that offers a range of sweets and savouries across the country. While being one of the leading firms in this segment. Shivratan Agarwal through his Bikaji Foods brought to India the latest technology to create bhujias.
However, not many know that Shivratan Agarwal who is the present chairman and whole-time director of the company holding a capitalisation of over Rs 13,000 crore, once left Haldiram’s and started his own company from scratch.
The story of Shivratan Agarwal – founder of Bikaji Foods
Grandson of Gangabhisan ‘Haldiram’ Bhujiawala who rose to prominence with his business with ‘Haldiram’s,’ Shivratan Agarwal initially began by taking part in his family business.However, he left after Haldiram’s failed to create an impression in Rajasthan’s Bikaner, the family’s roots and thus decided to create his own legacy.
He started looking for ideas and this is when he chose tomanufacture ‘bikaneri bhujia’, a specialty snack made from gram flour. While Haldiram’s was already a baron in this field, he wanted to compete with them.
During the 1980s, Shivratan Agarwal founded the brand ‘Bikaji’ and laid the groundwork for his dream venture.Finally in 1993, Bikaji was launched. However, at that time, while Haldiram’s was producing in massive volumes, Agarwal set up the first bhujia factory in Bikaner. Agarwal also travelled the world in search of the best technology to manufacture bhujia in India as there was no such technology available on a wide scale.
At that time, no bank was willing to fund his factory, prompting him to set up a business with three foreign groups. With advanced machines at his factory, the bhujia started getting exported to the UAE and Australia. Seeing such a surge in their business, banks flushed Bikaji with capital. As a result, Agarwal ended his core partnership and turned the business into a Public Limited Company.
Expanding his business in 2006, Bikaji collaborated with three other groups and in 2008, they opened their first-ever store in Mumbai called ‘Bikaji Food Junxon’. The company also touched a revenue of Rs 100 crores as the idea became a big hit. The brand also started selling more products to retail customers including papad, namkeen, and packaged sweets, among others. Later, Agarwal expanded the business by introducing innovative packaging like sliders and biodegradable pouches.
There was no looking back for Bikaji since then. The company’s sales skyrocketed and it has a market capitalisation of Rs 13,103 crore as of December 7, 2023.
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