the beginnings — 3

Somehow, nothing worked for us. Manufacturing seemed to be a distant dream. Read the beginnings — 2 to understand what we thought before we reached here.

I come from a business family engaged in dealing with agriculture commodities. My great grandfather started a small shop at Porbandar — since the 1950s, my family is involved in the same business. I have a distant memory of visiting the market yard/ mandi while I observed my father and sometimes my grandfather engaging in an auction and bidding price for Wheat, Rice, Bajra (Pearl Millet), and Corn. Farmers from adjacent villages brought agriculture commodities and auctioned it in the presence of a broker.

My maternal uncle had a large Kirana store in Jamnagar. He dealt with several tea brands — Waghbakri, Rajani Tea, and the likes. However, the packets were costly as compared to loose tea leaves, while the margins were thin. (I assume this based on my understanding now). They launched a local tea brand where they procured tea from various agents and repacked it under their home brand — ‘Lakhan Cha’ (Lakhan happens to be a nickname of my maternal cousin while Cha means tea leaves in Gujarati). The branding seemed fascinating to me back then. In a short while, customers stepping inside the shop would demand ‘Lakhan Cha’ instead of other brands. They kept many hoardings around the shop as ‘Lakhan Cha’ got the audience because of the branding, advertising, and of course, the quality of the product. The margins were way better than other brands like WaghBakri & Rajani. I remember pleading my Dad to start a similar tea brand — ‘ Sapan Cha’ — that did not happen, sadly!

When I moved out of Porbandar to Ahmedabad for further studies (early 2011), I remember visiting Reliance Fresh every day. Porbandar being a small town, it did not have Hypermarkets and Supermarkets back then. The touch and feel of some products which we never saw back home was fascinating for me. I remember loving that pack of Mishti Dahi from Amul and the Appy Fizz tetra pack. Then there were cereals from Kellogg’s. These food items had amazing packaging, beautiful graphics, and the convenience that made me awestruck.

Subconsciously, I was developing an interest in agriculture commodities and CPG. That interest has helped us to collect our vision together in launching Dayspring Foods. Being more realistic than opportunistic.

Read up the next post to understand how we came up with this name!