Seasons in the sun: A peek into the photo albums of India's billionaires
We delve inside the albums of some of india’s billionaires for a whiff of nostalgia and a sense of history
Curated By: Forbes India
Radhe Shyam Agarwal, Co-founder & Executive Chairman, Emami
Radhe Shyam Goenka, Co-founder & Wholetime Director, Emami
Net worth: $1.56 bLN 2016 Forbes India Rich List RANK #84
It was a mix of work and pleasure that took the co-founders of Indian FMCG major Emami to Tokyo in 1978. While Agarwal (right) and Goenka are seen holidaying with their wives (Usha Agarwal and Saroj Goenka) in the Japanese capital, the billionaire entrepreneurs were also attending a trade show on food machinery and technology to gain an in-depth understanding of the latest technologies in the food space, a business they later ventured into.
Back from Tokyo, Agarwal and Goenka forayed into the packaged food segment with the brand Wah, which mostly sold rice-based products. They even bought food-processing and packaging machines from Tokyo, and set up a factory in Rajasthan in 1980. However, they decided to shut down the business in the early ’80s. “We did a lot of innovation in terms of the product and packaging at that time, but I think the market was not ready for such a product, which was priced a little higher than the usual potato chips. Unlike today, consumer awareness was also low. Though our initial launch was good, we couldn’t keep up the momentum and the manufacturing cost was too high,” says Agarwal.
Radhe Shyam Goenka, Co-founder & Wholetime Director, Emami
Net worth: $1.56 bLN 2016 Forbes India Rich List RANK #84
It was a mix of work and pleasure that took the co-founders of Indian FMCG major Emami to Tokyo in 1978. While Agarwal (right) and Goenka are seen holidaying with their wives (Usha Agarwal and Saroj Goenka) in the Japanese capital, the billionaire entrepreneurs were also attending a trade show on food machinery and technology to gain an in-depth understanding of the latest technologies in the food space, a business they later ventured into.
Back from Tokyo, Agarwal and Goenka forayed into the packaged food segment with the brand Wah, which mostly sold rice-based products. They even bought food-processing and packaging machines from Tokyo, and set up a factory in Rajasthan in 1980. However, they decided to shut down the business in the early ’80s. “We did a lot of innovation in terms of the product and packaging at that time, but I think the market was not ready for such a product, which was priced a little higher than the usual potato chips. Unlike today, consumer awareness was also low. Though our initial launch was good, we couldn’t keep up the momentum and the manufacturing cost was too high,” says Agarwal.
—Debojyoti Ghosh
