Page 36 - CIJ Feb 2024 Digital Edition

Industry talk

Going “Alive” with Starching Clothes

Accents speak louder than words. Joseph
Cherian spoke passionately about starch and his
beloved company, Surya Research & Industries,
based out of Kottayam, Kerala. Articulating
slowly, he did not miss driving home a
single point on the wonders of starch and its
properties, the history of his company and its
future expansion plans. The commitment to
customer satisfaction is conspicuous and the
zeal to innovate and bring out a new product
every month has been passed on to the next
generation. Fittingly, their brand name is ‘Alive’.

What prompted you to get products cater to 100% requirement segments. For example, we have
four different brands. Each brand
of the laundry care segment. We have
into this business? our products being used in about 1600 will be distributed to four different
laundries in Kerala. distributors and for every taluk we have
When we started in 2000, we took a distributor. We sell directly to the
only one product into the market. We operate in two distinct areas: distributor and not to any laundries or
Customers enquired about other institutional and retail. Our products any institutions.
products, so we got into different areas are packaged in weights of 100 kg,
one by one, like laundry, housekeeping, 50kg, 25kg, 20kg, 10kg and 5kg What are specific plans
construction, hospitals etc. for institutional needs of laundries,
hospitals, hotels, resorts, hostels and for this year and are
Earlier, starching clothes with training centers. The retail sector
maize or corn flour was a tedious including FMCG requires smaller sized you bringing any new
task. Conventional starching system packets weighing between 50gms to innovations to your
was prevalent particularly in Kerala, 1 kg. Products weighing between 1kg
where most people including ladies and to 20kgs are with distributors all over products?
politicians wore starched clothing. We south India including Andhra Pradesh, Our agenda is to bring out at least a
invented a liquid stiffener, a pioneering Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They product every month. Our expansion
product in India, in 2001. It was easily distribute our products to supermarkets, plan is to expand outside Kerala and
soluble in water and left no patches on wholesalers and shops directly. outside India. We do product labelling
dark-coloured clothes and was very for online shopping on Amazon, Lulu,
easy to use. It was also anti-bacterial. Which company gives you Nesto, Flipkart, Jio Mart and Meesho,
There was no competitor then. Our first amongst others.
competitor came 15 years later. tech support?
We came out with five more We are getting support from the What are your major clients’
products. Some popular ones include biotechnology and microbiology specific target segments?
natural starch with polishing effect for departments of HUSAT and MG
silk sarees and khadi whitener starch University and we do research with We would like to target institutions
for whites worn by local politicians. the help of students across Kerala. The like the laundry segment especially for
Others were instant starch, water- Kerala government also supports us. the liquid stiffener, our pioneer product,
soluble powder starch and spray as it generates 50% of our business.
starch. Products like Detergent, What is your specific We are suppliers for Lake Palace and
detergent booster, bleaches, alkalinity distribution model? Kumarakom Lake Resort in Kerala.
neutralizers, whitener for white We supply to Hyderabad too. Our big
clothes, colour-guard for clothes, stain For the retail segment we have clients are mainly distributors. Our
removers for gentle and severe stains distributors across taluks. We have turnover would be 10+ crores from the
like ink, rust and blood and many more divided our products into different starching business CIJ

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