From trading turmeric to selling it in packets
P. C. Duraisamy traded turmeric in Erode, the town where turmeric is auctioned by the lakh of bags. In 1975 he started Sakthi Trading Company at Mamarathupalayam, about 10 km from Erode, with ₹10,000 and a 300 sq ft room. In the late 1990s it became Sakthi Masala Private Limited.
Winning over the kitchen
In the 1970s most Tamil families ground their own masala. “Buying them was unthinkable, and we had to win over the housewives,” said Santhi Duraisamy, a director and a driving force of the company. The answer, she said, was one word: quality, and “the perfect blend of tradition and technology”.
“Buying them was unthinkable, and we had to win over the housewives.”
Buy from the farm, sell everywhere
Sakthi buys straight from farmers, turmeric growers among them, with no middlemen, and a family member approves the purchases. By 2012 it bought about 36,000 tonnes of inputs a year, made more than 50 spice and masala powders plus pickles, flour and papad, employed about 1,000 people on a 30-acre site, and turned over more than ₹330 crore. It exports to West Asia, Europe, the US, Australia and South-East Asia.
For a spice company, buying is most of the business. A rupee saved on a kilo of chilli or turmeric, across 36,000 tonnes, is a large number.
Two regional brands lead
Tamil Nadu’s spice market is worth about ₹2,500 crore, and regional brands lead it: Sakthi and Aachi together hold an estimated 70–80% of the branded market. Thousands of small unbranded makers share the rest, and more than a lakh women work in masala-making across the state.
Points for a finance reader
- Start from what you know best. A turmeric trader knew prices, quality and farmers before he made a single packet.
- Your purchase price is your profit. Buying direct from farmers removes a layer of margin from the biggest cost.
- Sell the habit, not just the product. The first job was to make buying masala normal. Only then could the brand grow.