Snack time: Keyur Virani

Whatever your diet, there’s always room for a tasty snack when you’re looking for something to nibble on. In India, where the options are diverse and unlimited, the snack remains at the top of everyone’s daily menu. From potato wafers to Indian traditional snacks and extruded products, these snacks have tantalized taste buds around the world. Thanks to the temptation of these mini delights, the nation’s snack food manufacturers and distributors are kept well in the black.

In fact, these local brands more than hold their own against the multinationals. You’re likely to find the likes of Balaji Wafers, Bikaji and Haldiram alongside Lay’s and PepsiCo products on the shelves of Indian supermarkets.

One of the biggest Indian snack food success stories is Balaji Wafers. Its snacks and wafers are household names in western, central and northern India. Not quite as well known but no less important is the Virani family, founders of the company.

The Virani brothers – Chandubhai, Bhikhubhai and Kanubhai – began their long and illustrious journey to the top of the industry in the snack bar of the Astron Cinema in Rajkot. Their hard work and dedication saw them rise rapidly to canteen managers. Eventually, they started making their own wafers and snacks to sell at the cinema, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Chandubhai, during his tenure as Director, turned an initial US$119 investment in 1982 into a success story worth more than US$592.5 million. Today, his nephew Keyur Virani is in the top spot and hard at work building on his family’s triumph.

"I joined the company in 2002, and at that time the manufacture of savory snack foods was a very manual, labor-intensive process," the younger Virani tells The CEO Magazine.

"Gradually, we’ve worked to automate that process and while many things are still undertaken manually, the majority is done by automated plants. That’s the biggest change we’ve seen over the past 22 years."

Virani’s remit as Director is to maintain and improve the technical side of Balaji Wafers.

"Basically, all the automation processes and new product development are my core responsibilities," he says. "I’m a student of engineering, so I’ve always had a fascination with technology. I specialized in instrumentation and controls, so automation naturally caught my attention."

Automatic expansion

When he arrived in the family business, Virani instantly saw the potential for automation.

"The opportunity to improve our processes, largely manual at that time, was too big to ignore and became my driving force to join the company," he recalls.

In 2001, Balaji Wafers owned one manufacturing plant in Rajkot. Virani explains that footprint has increased significantly in the past 23 years.

"Every two years, we’d expand," he says. "Now we have seven plants all over India: three in Rajkot, one in Valsad near Mumbai, one in Vadodara and one in Lucknow, as well as a facility in Indore."

In 2024, Balaji Wafers expanded into southern India for the first time and Virani says further expansion will follow.

"We want to build up to two plants in southern India. We’ve just procured around 20 hectares of land near Tumakuru, and we’ll invest more than INR700 crore [US$82.9 million] into the greenfield project there over the next five years," he explains.

The Baroda plant is an outlier in the company’s footprint, not owned by Balaji Wafers but dedicated to the manufacture of its products as part of a joint venture. It’s just one of many partnerships that have made it one of the leading snack food brands.

"To achieve the success we have and to automate the Indian snack food industry, certainly we’ve needed help from our partners and suppliers," he adds.

Automation has been the secret sauce in the company’s expansion plans, as Balaji Wafers has been able to make more products than ever before. Traditionally, handmade products such as moong dal lentils or shing bhujia are now in the mechanical hands of cutting-edge equipment developed in conjunction with its allies.

"These are companies with backgrounds in machinery and global experience, such as WEMAG from Germany, Fuji in Japan, Heat and Control, Menon Technical Services and Florigo," Virani reveals. "These are all companies that have helped us achieve our goals."

Team effort

Whether by improving the affordability and sustainability of packaging, optimizing factory machinery or enhancing the quality and texture of the tasty treats themselves, Balaji Wafers and its partners are engaged in a team effort to excel. These suppliers have developed proprietary technology to give it an edge in a fiercely competitive space.

"If your suppliers are strong and supportive, you can get raw materials and effective packaging at a good price. They’ll help manage your inventory as well," Virani says.

"In our case, the benefits include more efficient machines since our suppliers are so technologically advanced. The better the machinery, the better the product we can make."

Between these firm partnerships, with advances in automation and Virani’s steady hand at the helm, Balaji Wafers has enjoyed a prosperous few years in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We experienced a labor shortage during the pandemic, but that’s been mitigated by our automation," Virani says. "We’ve had very high growth in the past three-to-four years.

"Our technology means we can do more production and our hygiene standards have greatly improved, so we can’t overstate the importance of warehouse automation."

Humble beginnings

These technological advancements have played a crucial role in Balaji Wafers’ remarkable growth, but Virani says it helps to keep the company’s humble beginnings in mind.

"We started on a very small scale in 1982, but every year, every day, we’re growing," he confirms. "To us, success means achieving a higher standard of hygiene, streamlining our processes for optimal output and ultimately giving the customer a better product."

That last part is closely tied to the company’s reputation in the marketplace as a value-for-money brand.

"We believe in economic efficiency in all areas of the business from processing to distribution, so that our customers get the best quality with great value," he says.

"It doesn’t mean cutting corners; it’s about keeping our company’s overheads low and reducing the number of layers in our distribution channel.

"Other companies have extra expenses in distribution or management, but we’re working to reduce ours so that ultimately, the customer benefits with a fresh product at an affordable price. It’s what sets us apart from the competition."

When the Indian consumer enters their local supermarket or convenience store in search of a tasty snack, more often than not the Balaji Wafers brand is their choice. Through the tireless efforts of Virani, his team and the company’s phalanx of external partners, he intends to not simply keep it that way, but also make further inroads beyond India’s borders.

"Our vision is to deliver our beloved products all over the world," he says. "Yes, we’ve grown over the past 20 years, but we always want to grow even further.

"We’re now in the western, central and major part of the country’s north, and some parts of southern India. Within a decade, we intend to exist across the country and then beyond. That’s our goal, and because our entire team is behind it, we’ll get there."