Hyderabad| Crunchy millet chikkis power Raju Bhupathi into a multi-crore business

Raju Bhupathi, founder of M for Millets, defies odds with perseverance, innovation, and a successful millet-based food business. Troo Good chikki is their flagship brand manufacturing 2 million chikkis everyday.

The idiom ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ does not apply to Raju Bhupathi. With a desire to innovate, the founder of the Hyderabad-based company, M for Millets, chucked up a successful IT career and invested all his money in the food business. Though he went broke after that, he persevered and bounced back stronger, creating new opportunities for himself. When we meet at his factory at Devaryamjal, around 19 kilometres from the Secunderabad railway station, Raju is busy preparing for the launch of a fully automated second factory, adjacent to the first one.

Dressed in a black tee and grey trousers, Raju’s casual attire and demeanour (“I am working for myself”) hide his capacity to take risks, perseverance and determination to succeed. With the support of his wife, he launched M for Millets in 2018 — the National Year of Millets in India — with Troo Good chikki, their star product.

What does a chikki have to do with millets, you may wonder. The traditional peanut-jaggery treat incorporated crispy jowar (sorghum) pops blended with a bit of glucose syrup (within permissible limits). The ₹5 Troo Good chikki in its 15 gram and 20-gram variants (a 30-gram variant will be launched soon) slowly made inroads into the market.

In its six-year journey, the company has launched other ancillary products – peanut and coconut chikki, millet pops (crispies), millet sticks, and jowar ribbons, but the millet-enriched chikki continues to be its flagship brand sold at 25,000 stores across India, particularly at Telangana and Andhra Pradesh residential schools and canteens of corporate offices.

Apart from the two factories in Hyderabad, the company has two factories each in Rajahmundry (Andhra Pradesh) and Chattisgarh, altogether manufacturing a whopping 2 million chikkis/bars every day.

The company sources jaggery blocks only from Mandya in Karnataka for its consistency in colour and texture. “See, jaggery has quite a few variables; One of them being the season; like, winter jaggery is different from summer jaggery and from the rainy season too. And the water and salinity of the soil also matters for the jaggery.

Reflecting on his passion for entrepreneurship, Raju says he could have become a businessman in his 20s. “I lost my father when I was young and didn’t have direction in life; one has many hidden interests but we need a bit of a push; else we keep accepting whatever life brings.”