Dips & sauces make it a Rs 100 cr company | Economic Times

A dip can be good for business. Ask Anju Chaudhri Srivastava. She claims her Wingreens Farms has already made Rs 100 crore in revenue this year, driven largely by their fresh dips and sauces.That is some achievement for a person who was never too fond of the condiment herself. “I didn’t even think you needed dips with your food.” But that did not stop her from encouraging women in and around the villagers of Tauru, Haryana, to make dips and sauces.All Srivastava wanted to do was empower women and give a means of livelihood to farmers in the largely arid region of Nuh district. Today, Wingreens Farms — started in 2008 as Women’s Initiative Network — gets farmers to produce certain products which are used to make dips and sauces at its manufacturing facility on the outskirts of Gurgaon. The company employs 400-odd women in the facility. Most of them, “who wouldn’t leave their homes without a ghunghat until 2008”, today make Mexican salsa, Greek tzatziki and hummus dips. “We worked with women who have never worked before and with farmers who haven’t ever grown herbs. They have now travelled the world of cuisine. We have changed the status quo by taking a difficult path,” Srivastava says.78337109Most of these women earn Rs 15,000-30,000 a month. “They are able to educate their children properly and build houses for themselves. Financial independence has given them respect among their family members. We have also tied up with an NGO to set up a school next to our unit. We are building a future for these people,” she says.The company’s future also looks bright. In FY2020, it claims it was able to double its FY2019 revenue of Rs 50.32 crore. Almost 45% of the company’s revenues come from these dips, and the rest from teas and mayos.The Wingreens’ journey had many turns before taking on the present avatar. It all began in 2006 when Srivastava and her husband Arjun moved back to India from the US because she wanted to live here and work on a more meaningful project or business. In 2008, during a conversation with gardeners at their home in Gurgaon, she discovered that they owned large chunks of farmlands in nearby Tarau but they had no money because of poor farming practices and heavy debts. This prompted her and Arjun — who was working with Egon Zehnder — to rent half an acre from a farmer to grow something and create a means of livelihood.783371147833711878337119For over three years, Srivastava planted a variety of herbs to understand what would grow well in these arid conditions. She tried at least three types of basil, peppermint, lemongrass, peanuts and chickpeas. She met experts at botanical and agricultural institutes to understand best-farming practices and the best seeds that can be sown here. This led her to cultivate kale, dill, broccoli, celery, parsley, roses, spinach and garlic.Once she was able to ensure sustainable crop growth, she turned her attention to getting a return on investment. In 2009, she donned her marketing hat and tried to sell their produce as potted herbs or as preserves. Though supermarkets picked up her potted herbs, Srivastava still had a bumper crop of basil. When she couldn’t find a good price for it even in the sabzi mandis, she rang up a retail chain in Gurgaon to see if she could do a pesto-making workshop for their customers. Srivastava thought that would be a more productive use of the excess basil, while also giving her an opportunity to do something different. It ended up giving her new product ideas — dips and sauces.She tinkered with the recipes to create their signature sauces and chilled dips. “Selling chilled dips was a difficult feat in the early days. Dips would get spoiled easily and stores would return them. We were disappointed but we kept going because so many livelihoods depended on us,” she says. The focus on fresh dips and sauces means Wingreens has to stick to its promise and take back spoilt goods from retailers even today. But Srivastava says that is less of a problem now as sales are at breakneck speed.The company retails over 103 products through its website, grocery stores and also co-brands its dips with early supporters like FabIndia in over 200 cities.Srivastava’s three children also pitch in. Zoha, Vikram and Omar — 31, 28 and 22 — have been very busy during the lockdown in developing and marketing some 30 new products, including spices and bakery mixes. Their next plan is to launch a natural sugar-alternative drink.While Wingreens is largely undisputed in the fresh dips category, it has now made a play for the preservative-based sauces market . “There is definitely a market for chilled dips in India,” says Samir Kuckreja, director at Tasanaya Hospitality, a boutique consulting firm specialising in the food and beverage space. “Wingreens has launched a lot of products during the pandemic. There is a lot of opportunity now in home cooking for which people want good quality spices and dressing. This could possibly play out similar to when Veeba launched a range of salad dressings and did well.”Srivastava is happy that she was able to use an arid land to create livelihoods. She says they can do more. “We were never meant to be just a dip company. We are giving hopes to the farmers that they can have a better future. This is how we think, this is our DNA.”