Indian Women Going Rocher Way

One melts in your mouth other in your arms but the feel in both cases is that of
unadulterated happiness. Soft in essence, striking in looks and shapes both needs to be
handled with care. Both come in diverse packages but each has the potential to baffle
your brain. And last but not the least, both are sure cures of a dispirited mind. Rifling
your mind to figure out the two? Well one the queen of desserts other is the queen of your
heart: chocolate and woman. Chocolates and women are two most celebrated symbols
of love. And when one is prepared by the creativity, skills and love of the other then the
domino effect can be nothing short of magic!! Creating such delectable magic nation
wide are the Indian women who are playing a lead role in chocolate making, thereby
upholding what a little imagination and a spark for entrepreneurship can do.

What can be a more romantic wedding gift than a chocolate made bride and bridegroom
sitting in a cart going to their sweet home after wedding or a Bride showing her love to
the Bridegroom with symbols of love like the Taj Mahal with hearts of various shapes
augmenting the piece: all these and much more are at offer at Chocolate Hut, Hyderabad,
an enterprise of K Lakshmi. Lakshmi, the chocolate lady also has a philanthropic blend
in her story as a successful chocolate maker. Being the wife of a businessman who is into
supplying chocolate cocoa ingredients, Lakshmi is associated with chocolate since her
marriage. “I started to take interest in chocolate after my marriage and read articles
related to the product whenever I came across one. One day an article in the local news
paper regarding consumption of outdated imported chocolates by children which lead
them to ill health caught my attention. It eventually motivated me to get into the
chocolate industry to make good and premium chocolates,” said a composed Lakshmi.
Initially trained by her husband Mr.K.Prakash Murthy, whose business involves training
people in chocolate making, Lakshmi later pursued her passion for chocolate by
collecting various samples and published articles about the delicacy and gradually
developed different and individual flavors for chocolates as Center fillings i.e (Caramels,
Truffles, Nuts, Nut paste, liquor, Sugar Free). What started as a humble effort by
supplying home made chocolates to near and dear ones has snowballed into serious
business enterprise with 12 stores all in most happening places of the city. “After the
initial positive response from my friends and family, I decided to have my own chocolate
store in the name of ‘CHOCOLATE HUT’. Today we are serving almost 65 corporate
clients which include Microsoft, UBS, Oracle, CA, Ascends, Delliote, Mahendra, are few
among them,” confides the upbeat businesswoman. While doing business since 1998, not
for once did Lakshmi compromised the health factor for profit. “We make our own
chocolate right from the Cocoa bean, our chocolates are 100% Vegetarian, and contains
only Cocoa butter, these are pure chocolates unlike other compound choco in the
market,” enunciates Lakshmi in no uncertain terms.

Inchoate but promising is Delhi based Subhatra Priyadarshini’s (25) ‘Choc of
the Town’. A software grad, she worked for an IT company for one year. But the
inherent zeal of doing something on her on nudged her to leave the job and join a
six months entrepreneurial course specially designed for women. A resourceful six

months empowered her with panoply of required expertise required to launch her own
entrepreneurial venture: making hand-made, customized, personalized, premium range
of chocolates. “The idea was to provide an online gifting service for people staying
away from family, friends due to job, higher studies and other reasons,” confessed
Priyadarshini. “We also have corporate clients as we believe corporate gifting has a high
demand compared to personal, but surely personal gifting is a high potential market,
which is our main focus. We offer a wide range of chocolates like Choco Textbox which
can be personalized to express any message the customer wants. We also customize the
taste according to the customer's preferences. We have more than 15 varieties of flavors
to choose from, we constantly innovate to create new chocolates for every occasion, the
chocolates are hand-made, fresh with no preservatives,” she further elucidated. Though
only six months old Priyadarshini’s endeavor named ‘Choc of the Town’ is already
creating ripples in her city and she is confident to make it the talk of the town in near
future.

Reshma Sengupta of Kolkata took up making chocolates as her vocation when she had to
stop her profession as an interior designer due to some physical constrain. “After I gave
up my interior designing profession my father and brother who are into food industry,
pushed me to do something on my own and advised me to use my skills at chocolate
making in a professional way. That together with my husbands support embarked me into
this business,” informed the young entrepreneur. Though not trained formally, Reshmi
has extensive knowledge about chocolates from her self driven efforts at reading and
learning the product. She has also done a workshop with Chef Ranjan Banrjee of Taj
Bengal. With two outlets named ‘Open Oven’ and a factory all located centrally, Reshma
is catering to the demands of corporate big wigs like ITC, Microsoft, Assam Company,
Times of India etc as well as the private clients for the last 7 years now. “Our products
don’t cut deep hole into the customers’ pockets, that’s one reason we have people coming
back to us. Also our products are of high quality and we keep improvising them by
bringing in variations that Indian taste buds will approve,” explained Reshma. Every year
at the time of special occasions like Valentine’s Day, Raksha Bandhan, or during the
wedding seasons, Open Oven gets all the more abuzz with activity. “Depending on the
occasion we bring out different products with different packaging and accessories. For
Valentine’s we have teddy bears and hearts shaped chocolates with vibrant packaging
that ranges between Rs 30-35. We also offer small cakes which two love birds can enjoy.
For those with a higher budget we have accessories like earrings, heart shaped pendants,
bracelets etc along with the chocolates. Where as for weddings we provide chocolates
that matches the color of the wedding card. The packing is mainly done in a traditional
manner with hand made paper boxes, glittering papers and dry or crystal flowers or other
conventional Indian motifs,” enlightened the proud owner of Open Oven.

What started as a hobby for Pooja Goyal of Bangalore has become her vocation now.
Chocolates always attracted Pooja and when her cousin offered her a training in the
secrets of making the brown bite she simply accepted it. After her training she tried her
hands at making the item for some of her close friends. Getting unexpected appreciation
from them prodded her to make hampers for the upcoming Raksha Bandhan. “After
Raksha Bandhan, people kept coming back for my chocolates. Next year I had my own

stall at our society carnival and it was a big success. After that, things kind of took off,”
deliberated Goyal. Creative that she is, Pooja sold her idea of gifting the new borns
with small souvenir of hand made chocolates to Apollo and Wokhart Hospitals. “I
made different packages for boys and girls. The idea was quite appreciated by both the
hospitals and the new parents. I have also made chocolate souvenirs for car dealers who
gifted them to the new buyers as a token of good wish,” informed Pooja. At Pooja’s
you can customize your chocolate according to your taste and preference, but leave the
packaging part to her, for when it comes to packaging no one can beat Pooja Goyal’s
ingenuity and craftsmanship.

Indian women are going Rocher (Vianne Rocher of Lasse Hallstrom’s Chocolat, where
Rocher starts a chocolate store in a conventional small town of France and kicks up a
storm with her generous offers.) way, but with a difference. They are hardcore business
women who believe that if you are providing good quality product at right price you
don’t need to be indulgent in selling them. If not storm our chocolate ladies are certainly
creating ripples in the country’s chocolate market thus perpetuating the mantra of ‘India
Shinning’!!!