Daybreak - From Medimix to Apsara Ice Creams — scions of family-run businesses are done building just another ‘parent’s brand’

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Indian family businesses contribute more than two-thirds to India’s GDP. 70 per cent. That’s amongst the highest in the world. And that number is expected to go up to as much as 85 per cent in the next 20 years. Yet, today a lot of these companies are at a crossroads. You see, many of them have realised that they can’t just carry on as they always have. Business as usual isn’t going to work anymore. Think of brands like Medimix, or Baidyanath syrups. Iconic names for sure, but they are increasingly being bracketed as “parent’s brands”.The next gen leaders of these companies have recognised this. They’ve realised that to have a shot at winning they are going to have to break off on their own. That too in a world that looks very different from when their family businesses were first founded. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the same. secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they managed to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into.

to the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production. Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert, as soon as we release our first episode, please follow Intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode.

Have you ever thought about how a majority of India's most successful companies are run by families? And I'm not just talking about conglomerates like Reliance Industries or the Aditya Billa group or the Bajajaj group, which I'm guessing was some of the names that immediately came to mind. I'm also talking about the hundreds of companies from across the country that were established decades ago, some even before independence,

as your regular run-of-the-mill mom-and-pop brands, the ones that have managed to find a spot in pantries, on kitchen shells, bathroom cabinets for generations. This episode is about those companies. To start with, here's a stat that may surprise you. Today, Indian family businesses contribute more than two thirds to India's GDP. 70%. That's amongst the highest in the world.

And that number is expected to go up to as much as 85% in the next 20 years. And yet, today, a lot of these companies are at a crossroads. You see, many of them have realised that they can't just carry on as they always have. Business as usual isn't going to work anymore. Think of brands like Medimix or Baydianat Syrups. Iconic names for sure, but they are increasingly being bracketed as parents' brands. The next generation of leaders at these companies have started to recognize this. They've realized that to have a shot at winning, they are going to have to break off on their own.

That too, in a world that looks very different from when their family businesses were first founded. Add to that, the complication of convincing both your family and your employees to get on board, and well, this struggle is real. Just take the case of 40-year-old Kiran Shah, the sion of the family. run chain Upsar ice creams. During the pandemic, he proposed the idea of selling ice creams via dark stores instead of from its 100 plus ice cream parlours across the country. And his family was perplexed. They just did not see his vision.

They didn't want to be so aggressive and instead wanted to stick to their tried and tested slow and steady route. So Shah decided to do things his own way. He started a brand called Go Zero that sold guilt-free ice creams through quick commerce platforms. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, of course. For instance, Ashok Mani, the grandson of one of the largest spice exporters in the world, started his own spice brand Kitchen Treasures in 2013. And then there's Arjun Weidea, who used his grandfather's secret recipes to start Ayurvedic healthcare brand Dr. Wehdias in 2016. There are so many more.

Apart from decades-old legacies, what they all have in common is the understanding that you can't can't take a hundred years to build a brand anymore. You have to act now. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host Rahal Philippos and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleagues, Nikda Sharma and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wedders Day, the 9th of April.

Meet Ashokmani. He is the grandson of Kerala's Jacob family. while that name might not immediately ring any bells, they are among the largest spice exporters in the world. But one thing they've always struggled with is entering the FMCG game. They even tried acquiring an FMCG brand to make it happen, but it just never worked out for them. So the family board ended up tossing the buck to its newest generation.

The ball was now in Ashok's court. The task before him was not for the faint of heart. He realized that being recognized by five, of people in Kerala, mainly people in the business community, was one thing. But to ensure that your product reached the shelves of every Kirana and the state was a whole other entirely. Especially when your competition is 100-year-old listed brands like MTR. But Ashok decided to throw his hat in the ring anyway, and he started building a brand called Kitchen Treasures. He explained to the Ken how, when it comes to FMCG, sourcing raw materials is just one part of the business.

The main thing is packaging, marketing and distribution. And this was an area where he admits to have struggled. You see, at the end of the day, it's not easy convincing the family bore to shell out a crore a year just to get a celebrity to endorse the brand. They would be far more willing to spend lacks on things like machines because at least those show as assets on the balance sheet. When it comes to money spent on marketing, meanwhile,

it isn't quite that straightforward. Still, Ashok has high hopes for his customers. while it took his grandfather nearly four decades to scale Synthite, their family company, to a thousand-craw-ru-ru-company, money hopes to do the same for Inter-Gro, the parent company of Kitchen Treasures, in the next six years. For context, Intergrow itself is the subsidiary of Synthite and currently has a revenue of $265 crore rupees, of which 250-craw-ru-ru-ru-reepes comes from kitchen treasures. But there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to family businesses.

You see, the challenges that Arjun Veyedia faced were quite the opposite. Weythya's grandfather, whose Ayurvedic clinic made its medicines in-house, had left behind a trove of carefully crafted recipes. So when Veyedia decided to carry forward the legacy following his grandfather's death, his first obstacle was to convince his own staff. When he spoke to us, he recalled how his factory manager was convinced he would run the business to the ground. But his skepticism was understandable. You see, Weyadya would go on to use his age-old family recipes to sell sexual wellness products,

even anti-hangover pills that he developed from liver protection capsules. Again, this was a marketing game. It was easy to change the packaging from a 30 capsule pack to a chewing strip of just five tablets. But offline operations were a challenge. Because when Wehdiya tried selling his products at Kiranah's and Ayurvedic stores. He found his brand up against Goliaths like Zandu and Dabar. So within six months, he decided to switch to a digital first strategy. And that ended up being the right choice. Cut to 2019, he's managed to sell a 65% stake in Dr. Wehdias to

VC fund RPSG ventures and the remaining 35% a couple years later for a total cost of 80 cro-dropies. He is currently the co-founder of a venture strategy firm called V3 Ventures. But here's the thing. The likelihood of both Ashok and Arjun building brands that are even more successful than their predecessors is slim. It's like Ankur Bissain, a senior partner at the consulting firm, Technopark advisors told us. In India, there are very few examples of second and third generation founders that have been able to do that, especially in the consumer space. He says that's because legacy businesses don't innovate with the changing times and mainly brands remain one product wonders. More on that in the next segment.

Let's get real for a second. None of the brands we discussed this far are starting from scratch. With their generations of legacy come certain strategic advantages, the biggest of which is an existing supply chain. The Ken spoke to multiple founders for the story, Shah, Money and Vyadya included. all of them had access to fully functioning factories to source their products from. Now, this ensures higher quality products as opposed to with newer brands, all of it sourced from the same third-party vendors. Ajun Weidea cited the example of minimalist.

When it was acquired by Hindustan Unilever, the beauty and personal care brand managed to get at least 20 to 30% higher valuations because they already had a factory in place. Another big advantage is easy access to capital. For instance, in its first seven years of operations, kitchen treasures raised 70 crore rupees in multiple tranches from the family. It was followed by an external round of funding of 80 crore rupees in 2019 from private equity firm InvestCorp. A private investor we spoke to said, of the two, the latter really helped scale the brand. This is because external investors usually bring more accountability as well as offer strategic advice.

When InvestCorp came in, it advised money to get rid of gold. gourmet food brand sprig from its portfolio. Why? Because, well, clubbing a super niche brand with its other mass market ones just did not make sense. And the results came soon after. When InvestCorp came on board in FY20, Kitchen Treasures was making sales of 157 crore at a net loss of 25 crore rupees. In four years, its sales shot up to 235 crore rupees and the company made a profit of 11 croix. Something similar happened with the healthcare-focused Ayurveda brand Kapeva. It was started by Amiv Sharma, the sion of the 78-year-old Ayurvedic brand Baidyanad.

And thanks to multiple rounds of funding from external investors, he managed to grow Kapeva six times between FI21 and 24. Multiple founders told the ken that getting that large chunk of ammunition is already a major leg up when you're trying to take on incumbents. But here's the funny thing about all of this. Sure, these next-gen founders are setting out to break the mold, but in the process, they've ended up creating a new one. Industry experts told us that investors have now started considering

a history of being part of family businesses as a filter for funding new ventures, just like they once did graduating from an IIT or an IIM. So the legacy is still opening doors for them. But the real struggle remains, charting a new course while getting both parents and employees on board. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras.

Head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted by Rahil Filippo's and edited by Rajiv Sien.