The Everyday Miracle Juice

This has been my morning miracle juice for 20 years. It's simple, versatile, easily available, and very affordable.

What Does it Contain?

It's all vegetable - Tomato, Beetroot (Chukandar), Indian Gooseberry (Amla), White Pumpkin (Ash Gourd, Petha in Hindi), Bitter Gourd (Karela) 1/4th, Bottle Gourd (Lauki), Carrot (Gajar), Lemon (Nimboo) 1/2, Sprouted Pulses.

That's to my taste and liking. Sprouted pulses add to the nutrition and half of a lemon enriches the taste. You may add whatever suits best to your taste.

How to Prepare?

The process is very simple:

• Grade all or fine-chop the vegetables
• Run them in a mixie with very little water in it
• Course strain to make it as thick as you can drink

What's There for You?

Many people ask me about its nutrition value. Basically, it's about uncomplicating life and getting raw nutrition. And the drink is equal to eating 1 Kg of nutritious vegetables. When cooked nutrition is lost. This is raw. It not only gives you day long nutrition and micro nutrients, but also keeps your stomach alkaline in nature.

How Much Does it Cost?

It is so inexpensive for something that can keep away anaemia, and gives you natural vitamins. It's a fulfilling and invigorating health drink at sub-15 rupees. Here are the ingredients (minus sprouts and lemon, both are optional) that will last for at least 10 days. Prices as of 24/12/2015:

• Max Fresh Tomato ₹31.50, Carrot ₹25.00, Beetroot ₹28.80, White Pumpkin ₹26.90 (1 kg each)
• Bitter Gourd ₹34.20 500gm (2 pieces roughly 100gm will be enough for 10 courses), Bottle Gourd ₹24.40 600gm

Relativity of Honesty

Honesty, it has been argued, like several other ethereal concepts are relative to the time, situation and the laws of the land.

Did you know that in the 1960s and 70s the Food Adulteration Act, set limits of adulteration in atta and other flours as “one piece of hair/one piece of rat castings” (amongst other things) as being permissible? Why? All the atta consumed was ground either at the neighbourhood chakki (mill) or bought loose at the local merchant’s store. These were kept unprotected during the night and liable to rat infestations. Hence the law, it often sets it at the level of what is practised rather than at the level of human tolerance. Laws have changed since practices have also changed. Packaged commodities offer better accountability, predictability, and safety to the consumers now.

Honesty, therefore, sometimes defies definition. In my view honesty has two dimensions.

1. Believing that the law of the land as sacrosanct, as the lowest minimum requirement to do business.
2. Promising what you say you will deliver. Consumers choose a buying destination according to the range, price and quality that they see as being promised.

GrocerMax wants to set a different level of Standard for honesty. We want to honestly understand what the consumer requires, and when. And at what price.

Winter is here in NCR where we operate. And our plans are getting ready to present the consumers all the things that the consumer wants or sometimes even don’t realize they will want. Fabric softeners for example for winter clothing, will come in handy. It should be on offer, along with the Kinnow and Pesticide-free Grapes.  Not forgetting the lotions and creams.

For GrocerMax, honesty is not about not-being-dishonest. This one should be as a default. Honesty is about being “honest in your purpose” towards the consumers and the vendors we work with. Understanding the consumer’s requirements, the right time, and price.

It is honesty of purpose and honesty of intent.
We may not be perfect, but we are always Honest.

My Tryst with Maggi

Maggi launched in 1983. And I was in the team that launched Top Ramen and Cup Noodles, in 1989 under Hindustan Lever (actually Brooke Bond India Limited). I have seen Maggi from up close as a competitor, and there won't be many like me, because only a few have done national launches for noodles.

Unfortunately, again due to an interpretation in the Packaging Commodities Act we had to withdraw Top Ramen from the market - top 30 towns. I can empathise with Maggi of what it takes to withdraw products you make with so much love and destroy it. A national loss. It takes time to recover.

Maggi is not just a fast-to-cook, good-to-eat snack, it is a generic, for wet snack meals. If you have been out in the markets in India, there are very few nooks which don't have a van selling Maggi.

Being Maggi - needs deeper understanding.

After becoming being a regular home snack, it has also moved out of the home a long time ago and has found itself a place in Indian Street Food genre. It is the substratum which enables creative street food artists to use their imagination to make meals using Maggi noodles, but the meal looks nothing like what Maggi Noodles is meant to be. Maggi is relegated to be an excuse, for meal creation. Add Chicken stock and spring onion and eat its soupy form. Or dry with shredded chicken pieces, or Green peas. Take your pick. There are as many ways as there are moods!

Maggi's absence created a void in the after school snack meal space. It was Mommy’s savior.

But why is Maggi more popular than Top Ramen or WaiWai? The main reason I think is not only the marketing effort of Nestle, but the versatility Maggi as a products that can metamorphose into a meal of "my making". It is the food canvas on which I can experiment as I want. It does not tell me that "you have made a meal out of what was already a meal". I can claim that the dish is my creation.

When I was involved in launching TopRamen I always felt that it was a better tasting product than Maggi. But slow and poor marketing of TopRamen never allowed it to surface the way it should have. Or is it that Indians prefer the European noodles and not the Oriental Noodles of Wai Wai and TopRamen, both of which are pre-seasoned noodles think noodles.

All I can say is that let things be. Just enjoy what ever suits you. Maggi adds to the colour of the Indian street food!

But keep it safe, keep it tasty.

How Did I Get Here?

Recently I was speaking to a small group of young Management college graduates. They had only one question to ask.

 "How did you get where you are today?"

They obviously saw the CEO positions I had held in my career as being somewhere to get to, aspirationally, and now as the Co-Founder of GrocerMax.com. If anything to go by, such open-ended questions have END in the focus, and not the MEANS. Nothing wrong in it, the end should fascinate you.

My honest answer was - "I don't know". Life has it, but we don't - we don't have stock answers for every question. For me the positions were just stops in the long road called Life. However, I didn't also reach here by a mistake or meander into one position or another. I tried to find an answer, which I will share with you.

Reason #1 - Build on what you have at hand

Every job needs your sincerity. I have moved from Tea tasting, to tea marketing, Noodle making, seafood selling, Frozen food launches, and retailing. Seemingly disparate lines, but all with food and consumer products. In every job I grew it and developed it, and left it much better than it was when I got it. Innovate to better it. Your life must depend on the work, no matter how small or insignificant. Stay consistent, honest.

Reason #2 - Diversity in education

At School I studied science with biology. In college economics, and in University - Post grad in Econometrics. This is not by design, and I don't advocate it. But after I started working I got myself qualified as a SAP qualified consultant to understand how the ERP world works. I have read widely from philosophy to management, and very deeply.

People become the real subjects once you're out of campus, irrespective of what you pursued in your studies. A diverse academics helps you know your subjects better. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Stay honest at what you do, you'll start loving it.
If you love what you do, you don't have to work a day in your life.

Ice Cream in Winter

Ice cream is the ultimate comfort food. Bad day? Grab a cone. Ice cream speeds up your metabolism. People love ice cream round the year in the West. Ice cream stores are open in the dead winter. Winter makes eating ice creams a leisurely & pleasant act, it won’t melt and drip over everything.

Diwali is approaching and with that the enjoyable Indian winter. This brings to mind a meeting several years ago I had with a Danish company who had ambitions of selling ice creams in India. Denmark prides itself to produce some of the best ice creams in the world, as a consequence of the great quality milk that they produce. The Danish company presented the sale of ice cream in the year. I was surprised to see that there was only a little dip in sales during their winter months. And I would assume that the Denmark would be cold through most of the year. Then how is it that ice creams sold equally well in all the months?

The company could not explain. It then struck me that all homes in Denmark would be centrally heated, to say 22 degrees the comfortable living temperature. My belief solidified when I read a survey – restaurant customers maintain steady purchase in December and January as they did in Summers. For the same reason, people loved ice creams in the cozy comforts. It would be like the weather in Bangalore throughout the year in of most of their homes, and undoubtedly all the restaurants. Then why not ice Cream all year long.

Indian homes are not heated, nor are several offices or public transportation. Hence ice cream sales is inverse to the weather – one falls, the other goes up! However, south of India enjoys equitable sales of ice cream I would assume, but 70% of India would find less favourable. No wonder Coke and Pepsi and Walls would thank Indian topography for keeping their sales hopeful.

Why Women Actually Love Grocery more than Fashion. Well, They Should!

"Two-thirds of women are the primary grocery shoppers, 84 percent of women are the sole preparer of meals in the household and majority of these meals (64%) are made using fresh ingredients," suggests a survey conducted in the USA by Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA) and Global Market Researcher. Back home in India those numbers and percentiles only increase. Women do grocery more out of love than anything else. Grocery (the stuff and the recipe) goes with grace of a woman; brings more goodness to them than the fashion of the hour does.

Now follow the run! And the names in this story are NOT fictional.

Leela was shopping at a high-end Gurgaon mall with Sharat, her fiancé. They had to grace a friend's wedding ceremony. She knew she had to look well dressed. After all, his relatives are going to critically examine the bride to be.

The smart manager at the store sensed the kill and was effusive in his greetings. Leela liked it. She settled for the dress, a Pink Polygeorgette Sequinned Kurti that the manager suggested. The gentleman Sharat was, he would not let her pay. (He might have changed his mind had he seen the price tag before displaying his bravery to pay. No wonder the adage “discretion is the better part of valour” is so apt.:)) . And arm in arm they headed home to change for the evening function.

Leela was looking gorgeous in her new pink dress, and so were 4 others wearing exactly the similar dress ! She was distraught. She even wanted to return home as soon as she saw the dupes! She insisted that the others were wearing fake stuff. But still nothing could assuage her inner grief. It lingered on like remorse after paying your taxes !

Cut to 3 months hence.

Much married and settled happily with Sharat. He suggested that it was time to call his extended family of 12 people over for dinner, now that the excuse of the honeymoon was over. It had to be this week on Saturday since the US cousin was leaving on Monday. Kanta Bai, the maid was always off on Saturdays. Leela had a prepare for a marketing pitch on that day too. She thought to herself, “I have 5 hours to cook or to croak”. She felt more adrenaline in her from the thought of the dinner test than the pitch. Clients come and go. But relatives only go!

She logged onto an online grocery portal in Gurgaon. She had seen their parachute logo, but this was the first time she was going to order. To be sure, she called up the call centre and an executive, Chandrakanth answered all her questions very patiently. She placed a big order of Rs 5000. She hoped like hell that she had ordered everything.

The delivery boy called up from the online grocery company at 12:15. He had arrived. Hurray ! India is changing. For once things are on time. And what’s more - in full.

She set about the cooking. Sharat’s people were Maharastrians. She summoned courage and made a range of their dishes. The mutton rasa was the highlight. She was nervous. But the table looked appealing.

The dinner done. It was grand success. The Rassa and Aamti were super hits. Even Priya (Acid) Aunty pinched Leela’s cheeks and said, "Sharat bhagyawan ahe".

Leela reflected. The dinner was her own creation. Without Kanta Bai. Sharat had a new found respect for her now. He asked “ who else can we call for dinner next?” The rolling pin narrowly missed him! Leela was happy.

You see?

Fresh Wheat Grass

Wheat Grass - The panacea on earth

It was way back when  I was a teenager, that , unlike what most boys of my age would have liked to do, and curiously so , saw something fascinating in the Naturopathy as a way of living. Curiosity got so heightened that I eventually decided to take a course in the discipline, trained under Shri Ganesh Sharma from Puthokotai-TN. Eventually I was told that I had qualified to be practitioner, which of course, a line that I never pursued. 

It was then that I learnt about wheat grass, eulogised as panacea on earth. 

http://thechalkboardmag.com/50-reasons-to-drink-wheatgrass-everyday

This is a good read. I have seen it used for several years, in the case of my sister who was a cancer patient. It is difficult to say whether it contributed substantially to her cure but we know it helped to keep her immunity levels up and the blood count recovery faster. It saw her live through  another 25 years after the first occurrence of the dreaded disease. It Helped in good measure, that I know.

I also recall that when I used to the VP , Operations for Foodworld Supermarkets Limited, Bangalore, I had introduced it in the stores in packets. At the Jayanagar store in Banglore, a lady would buy it every day. At the end of two months she showed me the results of her sugar level tests, which had improved substantially, her insulin doses were reduced.

It has always been my endeavour to get wheat grass everyone - healthy or ailing. The best results are when it is harvested live, and processed through a wheat grass juicer (now available in India online). But even without that it can be just chewed and swallowed or just run in a mixie. 

So when I started Grocermax.com an online grocery store in Gurgaon, now moving to NCR, I developed a few reliable suppliers of the same, and made them grow it in a tray. Today the 25th of Sept 2015, there was the first order for wheat grass, which was carefully door delivered. I am delighted. I would like the Grocermax.com  to say not " we sell" but "we care".

I hope more and more people will see the benefits of wheat grass and  I will be happy to deliver.

live wheat grass

Why a Clever Competitor is Good for Your Business

You may fear or hate your main competitor, and seldom do you love them. It's simply because they compete for the same mind and wallet share of the consumer. However, in the past months that I have been involved in setting up www.grocermax.com as a leading player in the Indian-online-grocery business, I have learnt otherwise. A clever competitor is good for your business.

Grocery retail is US$450 Billion in India, the largest category in the consumer space. Mouthwatering for any investor and growing YOY. The online space is in its infancy, and making brave efforts to be the king of the mountain, riding the tectonic shift that the mobile penetration is creating, and the Apps enabling.

I see around me several competitors, some of who started before me, but many others after; some heavily funded, and others wating for a glad eye from the investor community.

I am very aware that at this time when investors are treading stealtily in this space, it is importat to have a player who is big and growing, as the climber ahead of other aspiring ones. Imagine this one big player is taking major shares, in a large growing industry. Investors who have not already invested would not turn a blind eye to look for the second successor coming up from behind, to a grab major share. The leader often makes the life of  clever successors easier, and infact allows them to be smarter,learning what not to do which the leader would have.

Pray that your competitors is a clever one, and not stupid. I say this because I see the more that  things change, the more they remain the same! More about that later.