Lip smacking delights!

Fine Food, a one of its kind endeavour that is responsible for having brought some of the world’s finest culinary brands to retail and hospitality chains across India was the brain child of Mr. Jaswant Sarvaiya, an avid traveller who while travelling European continents, learnt the intricacies of Italian cooking.

Here, he talks to Seema Seth about how his passion fueled his belly to import fine food from across nations and distribute them in India.

Seema Seth (SS): What was your prior occupation?

Jaswant Sarvaiya(JS): I started as a builder in 1989, and have done multinational companies and 5 star hotels like ITC, Hyatt Standard charter , BNP Paribas etc. I am continuing that business along with Fine Food.

SS: How long have you been in the business? Who are the founders and co-founders?

JS: I started it alone; you may call me a one man army. The business has completed two years.

SS: How did you initially fund this business?

JS: I didn’t wash my shirt for 18 months( you may find it funny, but it is true) and pumped in 2 crores. It was hard.

SS: What prompted you to get into this business?

JS: I am a lover of good food and when I used to travel, I noticed that there is a lot of demand for fast food and thus I came into this. My main motto was to introduce Indians to good taste.

SS: How did your family support you in this venture?

JS: As by now, you must have come to know that I am  self made man, so family support was minimum, actually, they were not involved at all at any stage or with any aspect of the business.

SS: Tell us about your products and brand?

JS: We are importing the world’s best brands from all over the world and distributing all across India.  Fine Food has products like pasta, sparkling water, flavoured water, olive oil, chocolates, potato chips, sauce etc from Garofalo, Pedras, Bella Parma, Trattoria, Olievira da Serra, Toschi and Jubileu. We have 50 products and all have different price range. Like pasta starts from Rs. 175 to 300, chips from 200, 500 and 550 for olive oil of I litre, sprakling water for 120 for 100 ml, flavour water for  500 for 250 ml etc.

SS: Can you recall any one incident that nudged you to take the initiative?

JS: Ya, I remember this, when Himalayan water was new in India, I always wanted to buy it from its founder. People laughed as they thought that there was no market for bottled water in India. Today, they are the best selling water brand. So, when I started this business, there was lots of conviction to learn from precedes.

SS: How did you fund your business?

JS: Myself and from my own resources.

SS: What is your marketing strategy?

JS: Our distribution is like 70 per cent to HORACA that is hotels, restaurants and cafes and 30 percent for modern and traditional trade. Then we give to A and A plus shops all over India. We are coming to Chandigarh very soon. We have no competitors around the world; we are cheapest and incurring heavily to spread awareness.

  SS: What challenges did you face in the beginning?

  JS: We are not over with challenges, but we are still facing. The awareness is very less, since we are not the pasta eating country. We do not drink sparkling water. We do not use olive oil for daily eating. Competition doesn’t bother me. Awareness is the main challenge. For that we do cooking demos, talk to people, hold seminars, whatever better way there is. We are thinking of going e media soon.

SS: What’s your turnover like?

JS: Our turnover is 10-12 crore, which is very surprising as I had not expected that much so soon.

SS: where do you see yourself two years from now?

JS: We will be touching the mark of 30 35 crores and go across the country.

SS: How was the experience of building your first team?

JS:  it is very difficult to get like minded people in the world. More so, when you are starting, it is very difficult and I had 5- 6 people who had taken the challenge to be with me.  They are still with me and those who couldn’t join me then are willing to come back to me.

SS: Have you learnt anything from International trade practices and emulated them in your business?

JS: No, Indian conditions do not permit that but yes, I do take tips from my sellers from abroad.

SS: How do you kill your time otherwise when not in business?

JS: I am health fitness; I love to jog when not working. I also love to travel.