An engineer embarks on a career filled with flavours 

​Vijayawada: Enterprise, fraught with an element of risk, looks dreadful, and a job, even if low-paid, seems attractive to many. But a city-based techie Ch. Madhu Babu took the road less travelled and tasted success. Graduation in mechanical engineering and food business are not inter-related in anyway. Still, Madhu has made strides in food business.

There is hardly anyone who is not aware of Swagruha Foods in the city. But the man, who made the brand a household name in Guntur and Vijayawada cities, is quite unassuming. When his father Chagarlamudi Kishore initially made a humble beginning in the food business some 25 years ago, Madhu, an engineering graduate from Dharwad Unniversity in Karnataka, firmly believed in self-reliance and decided to follow in the former’s footprints.

During the last two decades, Madhu’s endeavours became so successful that Andhra food lovers have their taste buds activated on just hearing the very name of brand Swagruha. Unlike many educated job-seekers, the techie became a job-giver and thus a role model for many people running from pillar to post for employment.

The 46 year-old techie has expanded his business empire with several branches in Guntur and Vijayawada with an army of 200 workers. Half of them are women. “When I decided to pick up threads from my father soon after graduating in engineering, many people laughed at me and I was ridiculed and derided by my friends and relatives then”, Madhu Babu recalled.

However, he never looked back and finally success came his way. He ensures that more than 250 varieties of traditional sweets and savories are prepared and put on sale. The Bengali sweets, Kaju, Badam Pista sweets are some among the favoured delicacies for the customers. The techie let his business go online with a vast NRI clientele base in the western and gulf countries. Andhra traditional sweets and savories are rich in proteins and minerals, said Madhu.

According to a popular saying - there is a woman behind every man’s success. It is more so in his case. His mother Vijayakumari is an expert in preparing homemade sweets and savories and she leads the team of workers. “I owe whatever success I have achieved so far to my mother only”, says Madhu Babu with a sense of gratitude. Madhu’s success story has become a topic of discussion in the classrooms of leading B-Schools.

Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad invited him with the hope that he would help the management graduates take a leaf out of his book. He has, in fact, become study material for some ISB students who did a project report on his success story. Madhu believes that his business has a great social cause.

“The country’s floodgates are thrown open for multi-national foods giants like McDonald and the native people are obsessed with western food styles, exposing themselves to health risks. I need to play a greater role at this juncture to promote native food and help my country people stay healthy”, avers Madhu.

By Md Ameen