KOCHI: Onions form the base of nearly all recipes, irrespective of the cuisine. And only those who cook know the copious amount of tears that are shed to add flavour to the dish that finally turns into a hot meal. It is these very tears that led to the formation of EGK Foods (Everyday Gourmet Kitchen) in December 2014, which offers freshly fried onions to commercial and residential kitchens.
Recalling the incident that gave him the idea that led to EGK Foods, Satyajit Roy said, “My mother, a busy and qualified social entrepreneur, has made sure that for the last ten years, every Sunday, we had a big pot of mutton biryani in the house. And this meant that when the maid didn’t show up, she was the one who had to chop onions and fry them for biryani.”
One such Sunday, Satyajit who had gone out, returned home to find his mother all-teary eyed. “The reason for those tears was onions. So like any son, I don’t like to see my mother crying. With this in mind, we started to test out the market,” he said. The first exhibition did give tremendous validation for their product and the moms from South Bombay area immediately took to the product hailing it as much needed and a tear-free solution to tastiness.
Besides being a saviour to thousands of homemakers and chefs, EGK Foods directly addresses the onion wastage problem in India. Satyajit said that India, despite being the second largest producer of onions, has a massive 25 per cent wastage figure annually, which amounts to five million metric tonnes. He mentioned that EGK Foods proposes to solve the wastage issue by applying unique food processing practices and adding value to the supply chain for all the stakeholders involved. This ranges from the farmers they work directly to the consumers for whom they add value on multiple fronts, he added.
He says,”We have seen sustained growth over the past few years,”. The company procures onions directly from the farmers in the Nasik area. “I was the only founding member when we started. Along the way, I have had two rounds of investment and co-founders have also come on board,” he said. Satyajit was 28-years-old when he started the company. The co-founders are Jagdish Gothi and Pradyumna Kokil.
EGK Foods set up its first kitchen in December 2014 with an initial investment of Rs 5 lakh. “Although EGK Foods set out to sell directly to consumers, we soon realised that consumer education was a very expensive affair even through retail and e-commerce channels. We made a very conscious pivot to a B2B model where we sell our product to restaurants, caterers and hotel chains including flight kitchens as well as government canteens,” said Satyajit.
The company has around 50 permanent employees and in 2017 EGK Foods processed more than half a million kilograms of onions. “We hope to be a major FMCG company, whose strength lies in the backward integration which we have set up with farmers, providing them with buyback guarantees and support in technology,” said the founder.
With more than 500 restaurants across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Pune subscribing to EGK, they plan to expand their product line. “As per the feedback received from our existing clients, we plan to expand our product line to gravies and pastes as per their requirements. Ginger- garlic paste, garlic paste, ginger paste and onion paste are in the pipeline,” said Satyajit.