Kolhapur

• Sanjay Ghodawat: Managing Director, Ghodawat group
• Area of operation: Food, Agriculture, Energy
• Group Revenues: Rs 1,000 crore

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Four hundred kilometers south of Mumbai lies Kolhapur. Chattrapati Shivaji’s descendants continue to live in a magnificent palace in the heart of this town. A forty five minute drive away, in a hamlet called Jaisinghpur, another empire is in the making—the business empire of Sanjay Ghodawat. It might as well be called Ghodawatpur

Ghodawat started by selling gutka in a beat-up tempo and sold it shop-to-shop. Today, he owns over a 100 cars.

. Buildings on either side of the road are named after the business tycoon. Ghodawat Industries, Ghodawat Foods, Ghodawat Agro, Ghodawat Energy—all representing the myriad industries that the 45-year-old man has his fingers in. With revenues of over Rs 1,000 crore, the group sells everything from gutka, to windmills to fruits and roses. 

The company, like the man, had humble beginnings. Hailing from a family of tobacco and textile businessmen in Sangli, Ghodawat started off by selling gutka under the brand name Quality pan masala in 1988. He drove a beat-up tempo and sold the product shop-to-shop, across three states. “The feedback that I got helped me launch a new pan masala in 1992,” recalls Ghodawat. It was called Star and it changed Ghodawat’s fortunes. By 1996, Ghodawat was clocking Rs 10 crore in revenues.

Success brought copycats. “We discovered that our packaging was being counterfeited and the fake products were being sold under our name,” says Ghodawat. That led to the creation of Star Flexi Pack Industries which makes packaging material not only for the Ghodawat group but also for companies like Parle.  “By the late 90s, the Star brand was quite well known in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and parts of Andhra Pradesh. We thought we could sell products like salt and soyabean oil under the same  brand name,”  says Ghodawat. Ghodawat Foods was born in 2003.

One hallmark of Ghodawat is scale. Today, his pan masala is amongst the most popular in Western India. “Our agro business is the largest grower of roses in the country. We export vegetables and fruits to Europe,” adds Ghodawat. That business is worth about Rs 25 crore but is amongst his fastest growing. The profit margins are a juicy 60%.

Overall, the group employs over 5,000 people—mostly in small towns. The pan masala business is just 20% of the group turnover. Ghodawat has now set his eyes on the energy business. “It started off as a tax planning exercise in the late 90s. Now, we operate over 150 wind turbines which generate 100 mw of electricity,” adds Ghodawat, who wants PE investors in his energy business within a year. An IPO too is on the cards. The group says that it plans to invest Rs 400 crore in energy over the next five years. The road to Jaisinghpur is likely to see a few more Ghodawat billboards.