‘Opportunity is everywhere, you need common sense to spot it’

Musthafa PC is on his way back home to Bengaluru after addressing conferences at Harvard and MIT in the US — and it’s the humble idli-dosa that’s taken the co-founder of ID Fresh Food places. Musthafa, who graduated from NIT, Calicut and worked in Motorola and Citibank before joining IIM-Bangalore, founded ID in 2006 with his cousins Shamsudeen TK, Abdul Nazer and Noushad TA. The company, which serves 1 million idlis a day and aims to raise that to 10 million a day in three years, has a turnover of Rs 150 crore. With a new product that he’s patented about to hit the market, Musthafa tells TOI that it’s innovation, attention to quality and common sense that’s built his company.

Your ‘Everybody can vada’ video was shared quite a bit even before the batter was launched. How did you come up with the idea?
We’ve been selling idli and dosa batter for over 12 years. So we asked ourselves, what next? Idli-vada is a favourite breakfast combo in south India, but it’s tough to make vada at home. Except for grandmums who have mastered the art of getting the shape right, most people struggle with it. It’s started disappearing from homes, so we decided to work towards reviving the vada.

You said it took three years to get the pack with the spout right. Why?

First, we had to get the batter right. The consistency has to be perfect or it becomes a messy, sticky, oily blob. Then, frying a vada requires skill — if you don’t handle it properly, you end up frying your fingers. And the shape is key. We started with a nozzle, similar to those on ketchup bottles or used for jalebi making. We realised it wasn’t possible to join the end and the beginning of the batter in the oil. We had to do something to form the vada in the desired shape. We consulted industry experts and engineering consultants but no one had a solution. Finally, my cousin and co-founder went to a welding shop and created a mock-up using a hammer and pipe. It took him a year to have a working model. Finding the right food-grade material took another year. It paid off: One simply has to squeeze the pouch and the batter comes from all sides of the spout and you cut to get the shape.

How do you keep your team’s innovative spirit alive?
Opportunity lies everywhere; you just need common sense to spot it. All our products are related to dishes that are consumed every day in most homes. We just identify what is difficult for the homemaker. With time, we are getting better. It took us nine months to crack the idli-dosa batter, one month for the vada batter. We spent three years getting the packaging right. The self-seal packs we sell aren’t the regular ones. It is a boat-shaped pouch that it won’t tilt and turns into a vessel once you open it.

How did you start ID?
My cousins ran a kirana store in Thippasandra in Bengaluru, and there was demand for readymade batter but no one supplied a clean, good quality product. So my cousins and I decided to make it. We took a 60 sqft space, invested Rs 50,000 and bought basic supplies. It took us nine months to get the consistency right. We were also adamant about not using chemicals or preservatives. We used a TVS Scooty to deliver the batter door-to-door. In 2006-07, we set up a small factory with an investment of Rs 5 lakh and from then, it’s been a success story.