After working in the IT field for over two decades, Rajendra Prasad Regonda from Hyderabad was longing for a change. Despite having a high-paying and secure job, he wasn’t happy.
Besides, starting a merchantry of his own was a long-standing dream for Rajendra, who finally decided to turn virtually his love for supplies and cooking into a small merchantry venture. So, in late 2019, he started a deject kitchen named T Snacks, making healthy and traditional Telangana and Andhra Pradesh snacks.
The idea for the merchantry was rooted in the thought of providing healthy snacks for people, expressly children. “Being a father of two, I realised that it was difficult to find healthy snacks for my kids. Also, unlike in olden times, nobody has the time and patience to make such foods at home. That’s how I got the idea of specialising and experimenting with traditional snacks,” says the 48-year-old.
Today, Rajendra sells a wide range of tasty snacks, sweets, pickles, podis and earns virtually Rs 1 lakh as revenue, per month. Besides, he moreover ships his products to countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, etc.
A tough beginning
Rajendra, who started his merchantry in December 2019, had to squatter a tough time within a few months due to the pandemic-induced lockdown. “We rented a towers near our residence at Pragathi Nagar and started our kitchen by investing virtually Rs 5 lakh. But within three months we had to shut lanugo due to the lockdown. It was unexpected but at that point, I had my IT job which helped us sail through the crisis,” he adds.
While working his IT job and managing his merchantry simultaneously, Rajendra says it was his wife who was in tuition of the kitchen with his unvarying guidance. “Though we had to discontinue our regular business, we used the kitchen to melt and distribute self-ruling supplies to the people who were struggling to wrestle the pandemic woes. Many of my friends, plane those from the US, supported me in running the kitchen for charity,” he says, subtracting that he unfurled it till he was worldly-wise to restart his regular merchantry without the first lockdown in June 2020.
Once the merchantry was restarted, he says, “It was challenging as some of our staff were wondering well-nigh coming when due to pandemic concerns. Besides, it got tougher for my wife to manage the kitchen and our children. I was still working and mostly had to go out to meet my clients. I realised that I needed to segregate one, either the job or the business.”
“Starting a merchantry was a dream come true for me,” he says, adding, “I didn’t want to requite up on my business, as I knew I might regret the visualization later in my life. So, I decided to requite up my full-time job to focus on my merchantry completely.”
Though he quit his job to rebuild his business, there was yet flipside rencontre for him to tackle. “Due to the pandemic, there were very few takers for our products. People were very wondering and had concerns well-nigh hygiene and quality. So they mostly bought branded snacks,” says Rajendra who started marketing his products through Facebook and WhatsApp. “I took photos and made small videos of our kitchen to show how hygienically we manage the unshortened process from cooking to packaging and posted them on social media. This helped a lot and people sooner started recognising our products,” he adds.
Soon, he started receiving orders through Facebook.
A healthy twist to the regular snacks
While turning his passion for supplies and cooking into a small snacks business, Rajendra says, it was his mother who guided him with the recipes. “My mother is unchangingly a phone undeniability away. In the initial days, she used to guide me with her cooking expertise, suggesting the required value of dough and other ingredients that go into the making of a particular snack. Eventually, with her tips and suggestions, I made a formula for myself for each recipe and it has been working out overly since,” he elaborates.
Other than making pure Andhra and Telangana snacks, Rajendra has moreover come up with a few new recipes for these snacks with a healthy twist to them. “The format of making these snacks are the same but I improvised a few by subtracting healthy ingredients into it. For example, Chekkalu is a very pure dish made using rice. I improvised its recipe by subtracting vegetables like beetroot and carrot thereby making it plane increasingly healthy and tasty. We undeniability it ‘Mix veg chekkalu’. Plane kids, who don’t usually eat these veggies, love the veg chekkalu,” he explains subtracting that it is one of the best-selling snacks.
Currently, virtually 25 varieties of traditional snacks, including murukulu, janthikulu, sakinalu, karapusa, sarva pindi, mixtures, etc, are misogynist at T Snacks.
Other than snacks they moreover make sweets like ariselu, gavvalu, chalividi, and variegated varieties of laddoos. They have a long menu for podis and pickles as well.
“I only have retail customers and I believe that people buy my snacks considering of the quality I maintain. We only make products based on the orders and are very particular well-nigh not using reused oil. We have several regular customers who have been ownership from us since we started,” he says, subtracting that the snacks and sweets are priced at Rs 400/ kg and upwards, pickles and podis at Rs 600 per kg and upwards.
Gowri Manjunath, a wall employee and a regular consumer at T Snacks, says that their sweets and savouries are equally tasty and healthy. “I like the traditional Telangana snacks and I learned well-nigh Rajendra’s deject kitchen through Facebook. The concept of infusing vegetables like carrots and beetroots in the savoury is amazing, plane kids who usually don’t like these veggies eat them. The snacks are healthy as they are not oily. He uses fresh and good quality oil which I finger enhances its taste and is made very hygienically,” she says.
“One of my favourites is the ney ariselu, which just melts in the mouth. I moreover buy sweets like dry fruit laddoos from him. I plane sent these snacks to my cousins who live upalong and they moreover love them,” says Gowri, who has been ownership from him for the past two years.
Rajendra started his merchantry with just three employees and currently has a team of 11 members, among which 10 of them are women.
“I would say my time is my investment in this business,” he says, adding, “We earn virtually Rs 1 lakh a month. Though it’s not as much as I used to make in my IT job, I am content and confident in its growth.”
For increasingly information or placing orders, you can visit their Facebook page.
Edited by Yoshita Rao