Highly educated and with stable and thriving careers in Bengaluru, this young couple from Haryana did the unthinkable – gave it all up to make and sell samosas.
Shikhar Veer Singh, who rose to become a senior principal scientist with a big research company and his wife Nidhi Singh, a person with a marketing background sold off their flat in Bengaluru, without telling their parents, and invested every pie they had in building a ‘Samosa factory’.
Why Samosas, one is bound to ask.
“Once when working in Hyderabad, my husband spotted a strong urge of his colleagues to make a beeline to the neighbourhood Samosa stall and noted the roaring business despite questionable cleanliness of the kiosk,” Nidhi Singh, Co-Founder and CEO, Samosa Singh told Tricity Scoop.
Started in 2016, Samosa Singh was an idea to have a scaled-up Samosa business, one that would offer the best quality, healthy and tasty snack that is a truly pan-India phenomenon.
All the scientific research into the making of the best Samosas and concocting different varieties of this snack proved worth the effort – today their brand Samosa Singh, sold from 80 locations in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vizag, Nashik, Mysore, Chennai, Mumbai, and Pune, is the fastest growing Indian fresh snacking cloud kitchen brand. What started as a two-member ‘factory’ making Samosas to a team of 180 youngsters today, Samosa Singh is looking at a brighter future.
Over 100,000 man-hours of R&D have resulted in samosas that are 56 per cent lower in fat than their traditional counterparts. Among the brand’s unique offerings are the Kadai paneer samosa, chicken tikka samosa and masala corn samosa among the many exciting flavor options with a strong focus on the intersection of indulgence, healthy and freshness.
“Samosas continue to be the hero in our menu offerings and major sales are driven by the multiple varieties of samosas,” Nidhi said.
“But the struggle still continues, and we still have not bought our house, that we sold off,” Nidhi said but added, “the journey so far has been exhilarating and the future looks great. Though Covid came and smashed us, now things are getting back to normal.”
The simple realization of SV Singh – leisure time and snack foods are both inextricably linked to the country’s cultural fabric – made him and Nidhi quit their professional life and begin to live their dream of creating an Indian snack brand out of Samosas and Indian street foods.
“We were so sure of our dream coming to the realization and had no qualms of putting in all our savings, newly built home into the business. Through Samosa Singh we’ve found a way to strengthen this bond, and by positioning ourselves as leaders in the underpenetrated and fragmented gourmet snack market, Samosa Singh is poised for immense growth,” she said.
Targeting India’s massive fresh snack food market, estimated to cross $51 billion by 2023, Samosa Singh has emerged as a leading player.
“Getting the first order was a struggle,” she said, recalling the early days. “The big corporates were not willing to trust a small outlet and it took a lot of talking, persuading and persisting for us to land our first big order. And then, there was no looking back,” she said. Other than institutional sales, retail sales through outlets too caught on, once the quality and taste began to be known, through word-of-mouth publicity. Now online ordering has become the order of the day, in the post-Covid era as customers see fresh, hygienic and delicious food items delivered to their homes.
Bengaluru is just the place for any start-up or enterprise, and Samosa Singh only reinforces this belief.
“We were and are passionate about Samosas. And it is this passion that drives everything we do. Now we want to expand our presence pan-India,” Shikhar Veer Singh, CEO said.
Samosa Singh is about to touch the milestone of its 100th outlet soon.
And the reason for the growth is clear> Samosa Singh provides “value addition” to the largely unorganized Samosa business. The duo is reinventing and leading the Indian snack market and for this, it has also roped in other Indian household delicacies on its menu.
The scientists they are, the duo naturally swears by technology. It has a top of the line, highly automated central manufacturing plant – the Samosa factory. The Samosas they sell are healthier (56 percent less fat) and non-greasy, but yet have the satisfying crunch, warmth, and flavour.
Soon, it will be rolling out 1 lakh samosas a day.
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