From Rs 5000 investment to Rs 1 crore turnover, how this Delhi woman built a thriving kulfi business

Samta Bothra grew up seeing her father run an ice-cream facility. However, she was not very interested in the family business. She did not learn how to make ice cream or any recipes, despite being fond of ice cream.

She got married and settled down in Delhi, spending over three decades managing her household. In 2018, ahead of Holi, she experimented with making kulfi - a frozen dessert made by reducing milk and adding flavours before freezing it.

“The entire family loved it. Shortly after this, I served the same kulfi to some relatives. One of them called a few days later, expressing a desire to have the kulfi again. I received similar requests from others over the next three to four months. That gave me the idea that it could be turned into a business," 51-year-old Samta tells 30Stades.

With the help of her son, Samta set up a small business with just three flavours - rabri, rose, and kesar and began fulfilling kulfi orders from her home kitchen. 

"The only initial investment we made was in getting moulds worth 5,000, and with that, Mummy’s Kulfi was born," she says.

Samta started spreading the word among her friends and relatives, but the number of orders was quite low in the early days. "We used to get an order every two days. After six to seven months, the numbers increased as more people learned about our kulfis,” she recollects.

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Demand booms with online food delivery services 

However, things changed for Mummy’s Kulfi in 2019 after registering on food delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. "We started dispatching 60-70 orders regularly. Several riders used to wait near the kitchen area daily after 6 pm," Samta recollects. 

The success led Mummy's Kulfi to partner with Zomato for corporate orders, which are much bigger. “We began processing bulk orders, 2000 to 3000 pieces of kulfi at a time, for corporates,” she says.  

Today, Mummy’s Kulfi has corporate tie-ups and often sets up pop-up stalls at Big Four professional services firms, including Deloitte, EY (Ernst & Young), and KPMG. The company has also put up kulfi stalls in several other companies, including MetLife and Bharti Airtel.

For a long time, Mummy's Kulfi did not use social media or retail platforms to boost its presence. "We never tried to capitalise on it. Initially, we were focused on catering events or online orders, but after a year, we decided to step into the retail business. We launched our cart in Krishna Nagar (East Delhi). One cart was launched in the first year of operations, and two others were set up in the following year," Samta says.

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Products and pricing

The company has three carts in East Delhi, including Krishna Nagar, Vivek Vihar, and Surajmal Vihar. “We now use social media to share about our journey and products. That has brought in a large number of customers,” she adds.

Currently, Mummy's Kulfi has two segments -- kulfis and ice pops. While the ice pops are priced at Rs39, the classic kulfis are priced at Rs69, and the premium kulfis at Rs79.

Kesar pista, pan baahar, and super sitaphal are some of the most loved kulfi flavours. Keri Pudina is the most ordered item in the ice pops section. Some other modern kulfi flavours include Drooly Oreo and Coffee Mocha. 

“We source raw materials from trusted vendors to provide our customers with the best products," the woman entrepreneur says.

Meeting the rising demand 

A consistent increase in demand led Samta to expand her kitchen. “Initially, I used to do everything myself, from selecting the moulds to preparing the kulfis, deciding the sticks, boiling the milk, and cutting fruits," she says, adding that it would take around 16 to 20 hours to prepare one batch manually.

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However, the process was unfeasible for the food business after the demand increased. So Mummy’s Kulfi brought in machines, semi-automatic moulds, and a team of people to help with the processes. 

“Earlier, it took me four to five hours to boil the milk and another 12 to 14 hours to freeze the kulfis, as I was preparing the batches in the deep freezer. Now, with machines, it is much faster,” the food entrepreneur says.

This mechanisation helps Samta to cater to big orders with ease. The startup’s monthly sales are around Rs 10 lakh, which slightly dip during winters, resulting in an annual revenue of nearly Rs 1 crore.

Mummy’s Kulfi is planning to move out of the home kitchen to a bigger unit in the near future. 

"In the last few months, the traffic on our social media platforms has increased by at least 200 percent. Therefore, we are also expecting an increase in orders. We are planning to shift from our home kitchen and get a bigger facility with organised packaging machines, which will help us produce on a larger scale," says Samta.

The company is also trying to register on quick-delivery platforms like Blinkit and Instamart to service the rest of Delhi. “We are currently more popular in East Delhi, but we are looking to expand our reach by registering on Blinkit and Instamart within a couple of months. We are also trying to increase the number of existing kiosks and carts," Samta concludes.

(Riya Singh is a Ranchi-based journalist who writes on environment, farming, sustainability, startups, & women empowerment)

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