KRBL Limited, named after its founders Khushi Ram and Behari Lal, is one of the world’s largest rice miller today. The company’s most popular brand, India Gate, is the largest-selling basmati rice brand in India.
The story of this rice behemoth started modestly in the small city of Lyallpur, Faisalabad in present-day Pakistan, but without any rice in its trade repertoire. In the 1800s, the undivided Punjab grew only two crops—cotton in winter and wheat in summer. The brothers Khushi Ram and Bihari Lal ran a small firm in 1889 that purchased cotton from farmers of Punjab and sold it to cotton mills in Bombay (now Mumbai). As the business grew, the next generations set up their own cotton ginning mills and a couple of textile mills. They also purchased wheat from farmers and sold it to British agencies. But all expansion plans hit a roadblock with India’s Partition in 1947.
Families of Khushi Ram and Behari Lal fled to India on a Dakota 32 plane—a flight chartered for Rs 4,000, a princely sum in those days. The plane landed at the Safdarjung airport, which was an active airstrip at that time. As luck would have it, the family owned a building in Naya Bazar, in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, which had been rented out to the British as an office. The family found the building locked and unused. They broke the lock, entered the empty building, and re-started their new innings from Naya Bazar.
“Breaking into a tenant’s premise led to a long court case but that seemed like a small price to pay for having a roof over our heads during those turbulent post-Partition days of 1947,” says Anil Mittal, the managing director of KRBL and the great-grandson of founder Behari Lal.
Also read: Hindu College—a revolution started by businessmen, championed by freedom fighters
Purani Dilli to across the world
The family quickly put their old business back on track and resumed their interactions with cotton farmers from various regions in Punjab, such as Bhatinda, Dhuri, and Nabha, selling their produce to mills in Bombay for a profit. Behari Lal’s five sons wholeheartedly embraced the vibrant lifestyle of ‘Purani Dilli’ (Old Delhi), actively participating in the Ram Lila Committee, contributing through ‘shram daan’ (voluntary labour) to local gaushalas (cow sheds), and engaging in other welfare activities associated with local temples.
“In just a few years after our family relocated to Delhi, the senior members who were involved in the cotton and wheat business earned such respect among traders in Naya Bazar that they were often called upon to mediate in trade disputes and even family partitions,” reminisces Mittal, sharing a trade anecdote passed down from his grandfather. He adds, “In a particularly messy loan dispute involving a sum of Rs 4 lakh between a Naya Bazar trader and the Imperial Bank of London, my grandfather Bishan Das Ji advised the bank not only to grant the trader a three-year repayment period but also to extend an additional loan of Rs 1 lakh to help him revive his business. Surprisingly, the bank heeded his advice, and true to his word, the trader repaid the bank in full.”
Between the 1950s and the early 1970s, India faced food shortages, leading to massive imports from countries like the US. As a result, all food items came under the purview of The Essential Commodities Act 1955 and faced restricted movement. The might of Permit Raj extended throughout India, making it difficult for traders to conduct business. The KRBL family members, still operating as small traders or ‘artiya ’ as it’s called in Purani Dilli trade lingo – weren’t immune to these challenges.
A big turning point in the rice business happened in the mid-1970s with the advent of the Green Revolution led by scientist MS Swaminathan, resulting in a surplus of rice production.
“By now, the fourth generation of KRBL had entered the trade and my father Seth Bhagirath Lal, being considered a credible commission agent, became one of the first suppliers of large quantities of rice to firms with an OGL (Open General Licence) to export rice to Middle Eastern countries,” recounts Mittal. “We executed large orders of hundreds of tonnes of rice for companies like Tanna agri and Allana Sons, which handled rice trade across Africa and the Middle East. In 1981, we executed a big order of 100 thousand tonnes of rice to send to Russia through Rama Associates – later known as Essel Group owned by Subhash Chandra Goel and family. But despite such big trading – we three brothers Anil ,Arun and Anoop Mittal felt that we will have no standing in trade till we have our own brand,” Mittal adds.
Birth of a brand
When Anil Mittal entered the business around 1991, he found no elbow room. So, he compelled the family to exit previous partnerships in order to have the freedom to make their own decisions. And thus began a new chapter in KRBL’s journey—the birth of India Gate basmati rice.
“I started dreaming of our own brand. Travelling from my home in Safdarjung Enclave to Naya Bazar, I crossed India Gate every day. So, one day I decided to name our rice brand ‘India Gate Basmati Rice’,” says Mittal.
Soon after, Mittal became the president of All India Rice Association and it gave him a platform to make bold strokes on the national canvas of the rice trade. Under then-commerce minister P Chidambaram’s initiative, members of the rice association made a multi-country visit to Tokyo, Vietnam, and Thailand to review the milling operations.
“We saw how sophisticated rice milling in those countries was compared to our system where women labour would sit with large bamboo sieves to clean the harvest with their hands. Half of our harvest was full of pebbles and dirt. We recorded our candid observation that Indian milling operations were far behind these nations. This report led to the permission to import Sortex machines. This turned out to be a milestone event in the rice milling industry,” says Mittal.
One kilogram of rice has about 5,000 grains and the Sortex Machine would detect and separate 35 to 50 lakh grains per minute. “This technology allowed KRBL to sell premium rice at a premium price,” adds Mittal.
Riding on the back of technology, KRBL set up its first rice mill in Ghaziabad. Soon after, it acquired a defunct rice plant in Dhuri from Oswals and converted it into a fully integrated plant, becoming one of the largest rice millers in India by 1998.
“Unlike others who get distracted and start diversifying, we remained focussed on rice. We never diverted our profits into real estate or other businesses. Whatever profits we made, we put them back in the rice business,” says Mittal looking back at his entrepreneurial rice journey.
This article is a part of a series called BusinessHistories exploring iconic businesses in India that have endured tough times and changing markets. Read all articles here.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)