How a school dropout founded a multi-crore firm on idli, dosa

A rags-to-riches story of an entrepreneur from Bengaluru who saw potential in idli and dosa batter and built a multi-crore company around it is sure to inspire those working in the unorganised sector.

About 90 per cent of the workforce in India, including in Karnataka, is employed in this sector.

A discussion on ‘How to tap the potential of the unorganised sector’ was held at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) on Sunday where Musthafa P C, the CEO of Bengaluru-based iD Fresh Foods, gave the audience a peek into his journey from a school dropout to making it big as an entrepreneur. “How many kilograms of idli batter do you think my company makes in Bengaluru in a single day?” Mustafa asked the audience.

‘2,000 kilograms’ was the reply from a member of the audience. Musthafa responded: “We make as many as 25,000 kilograms of idli batter and just imagine how much batter is used by the roughly one crore population of this city? It might just be as many as five lakh kilograms,” he said.

iD Fresh Foods was started in 2005 and has now expanded its operations to Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mysuru and Dubai.

Musthafa dropped out of class 6 as he had failed the exam but continued his studies later and went on to pursue computer engineering in Coimbatore before graduating from the IIMB. “I come from a very humble background. When I told my parents I wanted to start my business, they were not very happy,” he said.

Musthafa has now set his eyes on what he considers another unorganised sector: milk production. “We are presently conducting a pilot study in one apartment complex and will see how it goes from there,” he said.

He said the chief minister’s office had consulted him on Karnataka’s upcoming startup policy.“I and many other entrepreneurs were consulted on issues such as creating more jobs for blue workers and challenges faced by startups,” he said.