VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh Food Processing Society (APFPS) has enabled several small entrepreneurs script success stories with its initiatives.One such story is that of T Jayalakshmi from Visakhapatnam. After she and her husband lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, not losing hope, she started an edible tea cup manufacturing unit – Sree Harsha Enterprises – with the help of APFPS.
Instead of maida (white flour or all purpose flour), she used ragi (finger millet flour) and rice flour as raw ingredients. Within a short span of time, she tripled the production capacity of her unit with the steady rise in demand. From 2,000 cups a day, production increased to 6,000 cups.
Jayalakshmi, who holds two master’s degrees, one in Telugu from Andhra University and the other in English from Gitam, aspired to become a government teacher, but for some reason she settled in being a private school teacher.
For this native of Dusi in Srikakulam district and settled in Visakhapatnam, when everything was going smooth for her and her family, the Covid pandemic struck. “It was really, a difficult situation at that time. My husband Srinivas Rao, who was working as an accounts officer in a private firm, had to undergo surgery and later he was infected with Coronavirus. To look after him, I had to give up my teaching job,” she recalled.
To support the family, she decided to do business and started exploring business ideas. Initially, she thought of taking tea time franchise and while researching for details, she came across biscuit tea cups (edible tea cups) which are available in Puducherry.
“We purchased them and found some quality issues. Those cups are made of maida. I felt it would not be liked by health conscious people. I thought of manufacturing them on my own and substitute ragi and rice flour as ingredients. I sold my gold ornaments to start the business and had to suffer a loss of nearly Rs 70,000 to get the right formula. People like to hold their cup and at least it should be able hold tea for 20 minutes. We finally achieved it,” she said.
As it was Covid, marketing and sales was tricky, so Jayalakshmi adopted online marketing and YouTube campaigning. With her product being of high quality and edible, within a short time, it has become quite popular. “We had to keep up with demand. I approached several banks in vain and finally it was Canara Bank manager Murali who came to my aid and provided loan. APFPS officials helped in getting the loan and their support is inexplicable. Thanks to them, my firm named after my children – Sree Harsha Enterprises – became a success,” she said.
The APFPS facilitated a loan of Rs 6 lakh with 35% subsidy for installation of two biscuit moulds under the PMFME (Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises) Scheme. What was a humble start of making an annual turnover of Rs 3.75 lakh, has now doubled in just one year and she is confidently doing a business of Rs 7.50 lakh per annum and planning to increase the capacity as she is not able to keep up with the demand for edible tea cups.