Shiv Kishan Agarwal and Manohar Lal Agarwal

Category winner: Consumer Products & Retail

Bringing mithai and namkeens to every household

The snacks industry in India owes a great deal to Shiv Kishan Agarwal and Manohar Lal Agarwal, grandsons of Haldiram founder Ganga Bhishen Agarwal. Starting out as a small family-owned sweetshop business, the brothers pioneered the modernization of the industry in the country. Haldiram is not just a household name in India, its wide range of products, comprising more than 400 varieties of namkeen, confectionery and ready-to-eat food now sell across 100 countries.

Today, Haldiram commands leadership position across the industry’s different sub segments – 37% share in traditional snacks and 23% share in salty snacks. About 85% of its revenues comes from packaged foods.In the last financial year, the company reported a revenue of more than INR7500 crores approximately and plans to invest approximately INR300 crores in the coming months for capacity expansion and acquisitions.

Shiv Kishan Agarwal entered the family business in 1968 by setting up a shop selling Namkeen, Sweets and Indian Foods in Nagpur. Five years later, Manohar Lal Agarwal, started a new outlet of Haldiram’s Bikaner Bhujia in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk.

With their foresightedness and innovative ideas, they turned Haldiram from a small corner shop selling bhuija into a major food empire. The Agarwal brothers are the brains behind contemporary packaging standards, which have become norms in the Indian sweets and snacks industry. Haldiram was the first Indian company to emphasize its ready-made snacks’ packaging and presentation. Shiv Kishan and Mahonar Lal’s strategic genius came from keeping a close eye on what customers wanted. Their leadership inspired modern business practices such as zip pouch, standee pouch packaging and four-layer structure flexible packaging, which saw shops and supermarket aisles in the country stock large sized namkeen packs for the first time.

Under the leadership of Shiv Kishan Agrawal and Manohar Lal Agarwal, Haldiram also introduced 100 % process automation in the manufacturing of traditional snacks and was the first company to open a quick-service restaurant offering traditional street food. It is not too far-fetched to say that when one thinks of mithai and namkeens, they think of Haldiram.