Coimbatore pround 'Sri Krishna Sweets' a overview
Considering Sri Krishna Sweets’ ubiquity and popularity in Chennai, it’s all too easy to believe that the brand emerged from the South Indian metro. Its corporate office in the city is a hive of activity presided over by the soft-spoken M Murali, who sits ensconced among a vast collection of Ganesha idols — he has 2,500 of them. But Sri Krishna Sweets is just over a decade old in the city and started off in the considerably less heralded town of Coimbatore. Coimbatore, largely known as the last stop before hill stations like Ooty and Coonoor, maintained Sri Krishna Sweets as one of the city’s best kept secrets, before the desire for geographic expansion kicked in.Bringing back some of the store’s famous mysore pak for friends and relatives was mandatory for people visiting Coimbatore. However all of that is changing — Sri Krishna Sweets has galvanised itself into action over the last decade, expanding its footprint within India and beyond.According to M Krishnan, proprietor, Sri Krishna Sweets, “From the estimates of VC and financial investors I understand that the (brand) value will be more than a million dollars.” Of course, going national was probably the last thing founder Mahadeva Iyer was thinking of when he started a restaurant in Coimbatore in 1947 — the sweet shop was just a part of it. But by the 1970s, the sweets business had become popular enough for the founder to consider hiving it off, and from then on, Sri Krishna Sweets began to evolve as a distinct entity.
Krishnan explains, “We realised that due to our quality standards, customers are very eager to buy sweets.” At the heart of the brand’s burgeoning popularity was an innovative take on the south Indian sweet mysore pak. Traditionally a mysore pak was akin to a gob-stopper; a sweet that required a lot of patience or an incredibly powerful set of jaws to savour. The Sri Krishna Sweets mysore pak on the other hand was much more user friendly — a soft ghee saturated savoury designed to melt in the mouth. Murali recalls, “Sri Krishna Sweets decided to take away the one negative that mysore pakhad. That tradition of it being a hard sweet was broken by my father.” The cycle of innovation has continued at Sri Krishna Sweets: Murali points to variants like coffee halwa, chilli halwa and pepper halwa.
When it began to make its first tentative foray into other markets in the early 1990s though, it had a more modest portfolio, built around traditional offerings like jhangri, badam halwa, laadu, and of course, mysore pak. Small town Tamil Nadu seemed the obvious choice and the first outlet outside Coimbatore was in the neighbouring Tirupur, a textile hub focused on export. Next up were Erode and at around the same time, Chennai, Salem, Madurai and Trichy. The most significant success was Chennai where Sri Krishna Sweets has 14 outlets at present. Murali says, “The reception was something superb. The original plan was to start a branch here and continue to live in Coimbatore. But even more than business what’s important has been getting the love of the people.”
Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai were up next. The product mix for these markets has been different with a few standard items like mysore pak available everywhere. The focus is on milk-based sweets in Hyderabad and cashew-based items for Bangalore. Some of the more popular products from its portfolio are currently restricted to South India — murruku,for instance. Krishnan admits that there’s a limitation on handmade products: “We are in the process of mechanising it.” The broad expansion strategy has been dictated by the spread of the core target audience. According to Krishnan, “We go where south Indians live and know about the product. They become our brand ambassadors.” He’s hoping this holds true for the expatriate population as well. The next six months will see Sri Krishna Sweets trying to get a foothold in the crowded and competitive food space in the United States.
Currently in Los Angeles and Milpitas, California, Sri Krishna has reverted to the restaurant format for the market. Krishnan explains, “People leave their houses to eat out. An exclusive sweet store may be more of a weekend phenomena and not do well on all days, while a combination might work better.” The brand awareness strategy at Sri Krishna Sweets has traditionally weighed heavily towards word of mouth. Says Krishnan, “Our customers have taken care of the marketing for us.” In Chennai however, the firm has blended itself closely with the socio-cultural life of the city. It sponsors everything from lifeguards at the Besant Nagar beach to Chennai 365 in 2006 — an annual schedule of events including classical music concerts, dance, theatre and spiritual discourses.
Murali says, “We’ve given many tree guards to the city — advertising is one part of it but social responsibility is more important.” Another popular annual promotion is founder’s day, when the sweets are sold at heavily discounted rates; a kilo of mysore pak costs just Rs 99. According to Murali, “We may not even recover our costs, but it’s about sharing the joy with customers.” Sri Krishna Sweets was among the early adopters of exclusive outlets at airports enabling visitors to Coimbatore and Chennai to make a last minute purchase. According to Krishnan, these outlets are not particularly profitable given the high rate of airport rentals but are very noticeable and a valuable PR tool. He is clear though that there will be a lot more of Sri Krishna Sweets in the next five years. He promises a push in Mumbai after Diwali this year, acknowledging the fact that the last year or so has been spent primarily scoping out the market and its customers. While all of its outlets so far have been self owned, there’s a realisation that a franchise model might help with expansion.
The firm has tied up with Big Bazaar in Bangalore and Hyderabad and intends extending this to Mumbai too. Krishnan is not perturbed by the fact that the budget pricing platform of the franchise might dent his brand’s equity: “The price is always with reference to the product. I don’t think we’ll have a problem.” What he’s most excited by though is the prospect of building a global food brand: “Some of the people in Tirupur people have made an international mark. I pray Sri Krishna Sweets should be a global brand in the next five years. That’s my dream.”
