Pickles are an integral part of Indian cuisine and hold a significant place in the hearts of Indian food lovers. They are widely consumed across the country and are known for their diverse flavours and varieties. Pickles in India are made by preserving fruits, vegetables, and even meat in a mixture of oil, salt, spices, and other ingredients.
Today, we bring to you a story about a startup, which is trying to spread the message of entrepreneurship and the determination of taking pride in traditional food habits of India.
JhaJi Achar
JhaJi Store was founded in October 2020 by two women entrepreneurs, Kalpana Jha and Uma Jha, hailing from Darbhanga, a city from the culturally rich Mithilanchal region in North-Eastern Bihar. They embarked on this entrepreneurial journey to showcase the traditional recipes of the region and bring the flavours of homemade Bihari pickles to a wider audience.
JhaJi is a homemade Bihari pickles and chutneys startup. An online pickle store that sells homemade pickles using authentic, traditional recipes from Mithilanchal. JhaJi has a monthly revenue of Rs 60 lakhs.
Jhaji Achar Shark Tank Story
In the first season of Shark Tank India, Uma and Kalpana pitched to raise funds for JhaJi Store.
However, the Sharks felt it was too early to be raising funds and nudged them to be back the next year with more traction.
However, people from all over the country watched the show and eventually ordered pickles and chutneys.
A few months later, Vineeta Singh, founder of Sugar Cosmetics and one of the Sharks, mentioned in an interview that her mother had ordered the pickles.
Meanwhile, both had been working to raise a fund with the help of Jharkhand Angels Network, Karekeba Ventures and SIA Angel Network.
Jayant, from Jharkhand Angels, reached out to Vineeta and Namita Thapar, another Shark and CEO of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, to see if they would want to participate.
On the evening of July 06, 2022 Shark Tank’s production visited JhaJi kitchen-factory in Darbhanga and expressed a desire to share the journey on the show.
Next day, Sharks Vineeta Singh and Namita Thapar visited the kitchen-factory of JhaJi.
They joined the fund raise to hand over an investment cheque of Rs 85 lakh to JhaJi Store.
JhaJi Achar Story
Kalpana Jha shared insights with News18.com about the startup and the upcoming targets.
What motivated you to start JhaJi ?
JhaJi Store was registered in Oct 2020, and began the sales via website in June 2021.
The business started with Kalpana and Uma’s lifetime ambition to start their own venture. And with the goal to help families discover and relish Bihari cuisine, starting with pickles and chutneys. Both the founders also saw the potential of the business to generate meaningful employment locally at a time when many were suffering from job loss after the pandemic.
What was the first profit when the journey started?
Jhaji’s journey involves various stages with corresponding costs and profit margins. First, the cost of making Jhaji amounts to 31% of the total expenses. This covers the expenses incurred in producing and manufacturing Jhaji. Then, the cost of shipping Jhaji constitutes another 31% of the total expenses. This covers the transportation and logistics costs associated with delivering Jhaji to its intended destinations.
The cost of selling Jhaji accounts for 22% of the total expenses, which includes marketing, distribution, and retailing expenses. Finally, after accounting for all costs, Jhaji generates a profit margin of 17%. This reflects the earnings and financial gains obtained from selling Jhaji after deducting all production, shipping, and selling costs
What numbers are you expecting this year?
We plan to do Rs 10 Cr in sales in the calendar year 2023, with a business model that breaks even at EBITDA level. In the year 2024, we plan to grow this by 3 to 4 times, generating up to 10% in EBITDA margins.
What is your USP?
Our vision is to create a well-loved brand bringing delicacies from Maithili and Bihari cuisine to people in India and the world.
Our strategy is to maintain a deep focus on Maithili and related cuisines and offer a wide variety of pickles, chutneys, dry sweets, and snacks from the region to crores of people in India and beyond.
Somebody would need decades of pickling experience, a love for Maithili culture, and an excellent background in the D2C business model to come close to copying JhaJi Store. Even if these stars were to align, the JhaJi store is building moats that are getting deeper with every passing day and every passing interaction.
The business is building these deep brand moats around three main pillars:
Product innovation: in our recipes and methods, we’re going back to roots and making products the slow, traditional way. We regularly work with elderly women here to find, perfect and preserve authentic Maithili recipes.
Customer service: Borrowing from the culture in Mithila, the norms in customer service, and policy on returns and exchange are hospitable and courteous. With authenticity, honour and integrity as its core value, the JhaJi Store brand is growing stronger one interaction at a time.
Purpose-driven brand: JhaJi Store beyond selling pickles is celebrating Mithilanchal’s unique culture , and is creating sustainable livelihood opportunities in the region. This larger purpose and the stories that flow from there build stronger associations with our customers thus strengthening our MOAT.
What are plans for FY 2023-24 in terms of business targets?
The business reached 80 lakh + Monthly Recurring Revenue in January 2023, so we’ve already reached the top line, but production and distribution expenses still need to be reduced. In order to do this, we are expanding our warehouses in Mumbai and Bengaluru, finding new suppliers of raw materials, and mechanising several steps in the manufacturing and packaging processes.
We intend to increase this by three to four times in 2024, producing EBITDA margins of up to 10%.
To achieve this expansion, we want to double the size of our D2C company, quadruple the size of our Amazon + marketplace business, and form strategic retail alliances in our target regions (India’s top 6 metropolises, the Lucknow Zone, Central India Zone, and the Bihar + Jharkhand region).
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