GRB Foods превратилась в компанию с выручкой более 100 млрд рупий, оставаясь семейным бизнесом без внешнего финансирования

G R Balasubramaniam’s journey in business began long before he started GRB Dairy Foods. It began in a small village near Palani in Tamil Nadu, where he grew up in a family of six children and left school at the age of 13 to work in Bengaluru. Fourteen years later, he walked away from that job with Rs 6,000 in savings, no formal qualifications and no business of his own. What he did have was experience in the butter trade and a network of people who knew him and trusted him. That experience eventually became the foundation for GRB, a company that grew from a small butter business in Bengaluru into a packaged-foods company with revenue of more than Rs 1,000 crore. Balasubramaniam grew up in Chinna Karattupatty, a small village near Palani in Tamil Nadu. When he was a child, the village had around 300 people. There was no bus service, electricity or proper water supply. The nearest school offering classes beyond Class 5 was about 5 kilometres away. His father was a small farmer and also traded pulses and other agricultural produce. He travelled from village to village on a bicycle, buying produce and selling it in nearby towns. The income had to support a family of eight. Education was important to his father. He wanted his sons to study, although the family's circumstances made that difficult. He was around 13 years old and studying in Class 8 when his elder sister and brother-in-law, who were running a small butter business in Bengaluru, needed help. Balasubramaniam was sent to the city to work with them. For the next 14 years, Balasubramaniam worked in his brother-in-law's business. The work exposed him to almost every part of the trade. He travelled to villages to procure butter from small producers, delivered products to households in Bengaluru, maintained accounts and dealt directly with customers. He also learnt how butter was processed into ghee and how the product moved through the market. The experience gave him practical knowledge that would later prove more important than a formal business education. In 1984, he decided to leave his brother-in-law's business. He was 28 years old. He had Rs 6,000 in savings. He paid Rs 3,000 as advance rent for a small room, leaving him with Rs 3,000. His family could not provide financial support, and with no formal education or professional qualifications, finding a conventional job was unlikely to be easy. Instead, he decided to use the experience and relationships he had built during his years in the butter trade. Balasubramaniam's first source of capital was not a bank loan or an investor. He organised a chit fund, a rotating savings arrangement in which a group of participants contributes a fixed amount and members receive the accumulated pool in rotation or through an auction. His brother-in-law had previously operated such a scheme, so Balasubramaniam was familiar with the model. He approached people he knew and managed to form a group within a day. By the second month, he received a payout of around Rs 50,000. He used the money to purchase his first stock of butter. His initial operation was small which was around 75 kg of butter a month, which he sold by making door-to-door deliveries across Bengaluru. But his years in the trade had also shown him a problem in the market. Butter was perishable and could spoil quickly. Retailers therefore faced losses when stock did not sell in time. Balasubramaniam also noticed that several institutional buyers, including hotels and sweet shops, were buying butter mainly to convert it into ghee. The process could result in inconsistent quality and yield. He saw an opportunity to make ghee himself and sell a finished product rather than simply supplying butter as an intermediate product. Within about a year, his monthly income had increased significantly, reaching around Rs 25,000. He rented a shop, hired employees and began selling packaged products. The first GRB factory was established in Bengaluru in 1991. The company subsequently expanded its manufacturing footprint, including a facility in Dindigul and a larger plant in Hosur in 1999. Chennai became an important market outside Bengaluru. The company later expanded across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and entered other southern markets, including Andhra Pradesh. GRB, which had built its early business around ghee and dairy products, gradually moved into other packaged-food categories. Its portfolio expanded to include spice mixes, instant mixes, sweets, snacks and ice cream. For several decades, GRB remained a privately held, largely bootstrapped business. Rather than relying on a large external funding history, its expansion was driven primarily by operations, distribution and reinvestment into the business. The financial numbers show the pace at which that model eventually scaled. According to data available on Tracxn for GRB Dairy Foods Private Limited, the company reported revenue of Rs 1,084.47 crore in FY25 from Rs 190.62 crore in FY14. Net profit rose from Rs 4.25 crore in FY14 to Rs 10.88 crore in FY16 before declining to Rs 7.60 crore in FY18. It then increased to Rs 20.28 crore in FY19 and Rs 22.38 crore in FY20. FY21 marked a sharp jump in profitability, with net profit rising to Rs 76.67 crore on revenue of Rs 587.86 crore. Profit moderated to Rs 59.86 crore in FY22 even as revenue continued to rise. The next phase was marked by a faster increase in scale. Revenue reached about Rs 891 crore in FY23 and crossed the Rs 1,000-crore mark in FY24, when the company reported revenue of Rs 1,011.12 crore and net profit of Rs 71.84 crore. In FY25, revenue increased further to Rs 1,084.47 crore. EBITDA stood at Rs 122.68 crore and net profit at Rs 75.45 crore. The numbers represent a significant change from the business Balasubramaniam started in 1984. Over roughly a decade, annual revenue increased from less than Rs 200 crore to more than Rs 1,000 crore. GRB's growth has taken place without the kind of high-profile external funding history associated with many modern consumer businesses. Its expansion has instead come through manufacturing capacity, product additions and a growing distribution network. The company's leadership has also remained closely associated with the Balasubramaniam family, with G R Balasubramaniam, Balasubramaniam Dhanraj and Balakarthik Balasubramaniam among the key figures associated with the business. The result is a business that has moved considerably beyond the product with which it started. Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated! Find the best of Al News in one place, specially curated for you every weekend. 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