Yielding delectable returns

Monginis has made its presence felt quite effectively in the market by serving its customers with delightful memorable experiences. Zoher Khorakiwala, Chairman & Managing Director, Monginis shares the company’s retail journey.

Neha Malhotra (NM): Can you brief us about the inception of Mongini? 
Zoher Khorakiwala (ZK): Monginis traces its roots back to the time when it was a favourite among the Europeans in Mumbai. Run by two Italian brothers, Monginis was a must at every celebration then. In the 1960s, Monginis was bought over by the Khorakiwala family. By 1971, the idea of reaching out to customers in their neighbourhood was born. 

The Monginis headquarters in Mumbai is also a model bakery with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities designed to produce a wide range of cakes, gateaux and pastries, tongue-tickling savouries and a variety of any-time snacks. Here quality assurance steps at each and every stage of the manufacturing process ensure world-class soft and fresh cakes, snacks and baker's ware. Monginis headquarters has a well equipped lab, assuring best of the hygiene and quality standards of our products for our valued customers. 

Monginis today is present in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, Nasik, Rajkot, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar / Cuttack, Indore and Surat and is still growing. It also has a strong presence in Cairo (Egypt) and besides supplying to neighbouring countries like Libya, Yemen, Sudan in the African Continent, Monginis brand also caters to the UK market.  

NM: Most of the brands witnessed the heat of recession? Was Mongini’s effected? 
ZK: Not much. People never stop celebrating birthdays which come only once a year. The joy of sharing happiness is simply irresistible and precisely for the same reason we are insulated from the effects of the economic downturns. 

NM: Bakery is a business which deals with items which have a very short shelf life? How is the quality maintained? 
ZK: In our business, ‘freshness’ sells. We take care to maintain this freshness by taking proper care during transportation and even during storage and display of the products in the shops. Our fresh cream cakes and pastries need to be maintained at a temperature between 0 degrees – 4 degrees C, otherwise these products become sour. The stale and damaged products are sent back to the factory and are duly disposed off. Today, Monginis is in business for more than 30 years and growing by leaps and bounds, it is only because of the ‘consistent quality’ it is delivering to its loyal patrons.  

NM: How is standardisation maintained across all your stores? 
ZK: We have specifications laid down for doing the interiors of the shops. The counters and equipments are supplied by the company approved vendors. The company has appointed an architect, who is responsible for maintaining the look and feel of the shops and for faultless execution; we have a panel of interior contractors. 

Products are standardised for a city because we follow a model wherein all the cake shops are supplied from a central bakery. Whereas, the product range, design and flavours may vary from city to city, since we strongly believe that the local tastes need to be respected and catered to. 

NM: How do you manage the supply chain across your outlets? 
ZK:The backbone of any business is logistics. We receive orders from the retail shops in the night a day before and all the products are manufactured through out the night and the shops are supplied through company vans by early morning. All the products need to be delivered within a span of 1 – 3 hours time and we follow the rule ferociously. All our vans are insulated and even carry insulated shippers. Some of the vans are refrigerated, which ply on the long routes. 

We have a set of guidelines for our logistics and our staff in the shops. They are well trained on these aspects and these guidelines are strictly followed. We also conduct surprise audits, just to ensure that the quality of the supply chain is maintained. 

NM: What are the latest marketing strategies being adopted to market the brand? 
ZK: Recently, we started digital marketing and are getting a good response. We have become very active in the cyber world by online advertising through reputed portals like yahoo, rediff, sify, etc. and even by using social networking sites like facebook, orkut, etc. On mobiles, we have started an SMS push on relevant occasions and even started forwarding SMS birthday wishes to our loyal set of consumers on their birthdays.  

NM: What are the company’s future plans in terms of expansion? 
ZK: After expanding in Indore, we are planning to start our exclusive cake shops in Kanpur / Lucknow, Raipur, Chennai and Bangalore. We do acknowledge the power of online business and its future growth prospects. Therefore, we have already launched our service, wherein one can order or gift cakes by visiting our website. Monginis will soon be expanding to other European countries.