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Glass bottles with red caps perched on kitchen shelves are evidence that Mother’s Recipe has been and is here. Mother’s
Recipe is India’s favourite pickle brand; indeed, such a favourite that from its factory more than 350,000 bottles and
pouches are shipped out each day – around the week, around the year. What makes this brand special is the work that
has gone into making the products authentic, traditional and as close to made-by-grandma recipes as possible. Today,
Mother’s Recipe is set to embark on another ambitious journey – the launch of several categories of convenience
products: ready-to-eat foods, gravy- and instant- mixes, pastes and chutneys; each 100% natural and preservative free.
Mother’s Recipe believes it’s the way grandmas would have liked.
Market was sown with development and reforms in
For sheer zing almost nothing can compare with India. Out of these, nuclear families emerged and
Indian cuisine. And if the word be allowed, adding house wives stepped out of homes into offices
a little pickle would almost certainly make it the and found less time for the hearth; but while this
zingiest in the world. For millions of people a was happening the craving for delicious pickles
pickle just adds up nicely, imparting to even a of yesteryears never really left people. Mother’s
frugal meal, a warm fulsome character. Recipe tapped on this hunger for traditional
So how did pickles come about? No one knows pickle and foods across India, serving people
but one thing is certain: the humble pickle cuts their regional traditional delicacies across states
and boundaries.
Today, the brand is
synonymous with
pickles made in
the traditional
mould or rephrased,
in the way
grandmother made.
Achievements
Mother’s Recipe
pickles have been
rated as the best
pickle available in
the Delhi NCR
region on the
parameters of value-
for-money, taste,
across cultures, languages and socio-economic microbiological and other sensory factors. This
barriers. Every class of people – be it the table of independent evaluation of pickles was carried
kings or the floor of the less privileged – is happy out by the Voluntary Organisation in the
with a bit of it on the side. While no authentic Interest of Consumer Education (VOICE),
data can ever be available as to how much pickle an NGO that works for the benefit of
is consumed each year, there is complete clarity consumers. VOICE communicates to the
that the organised sector is beginning to flex its consumers through its monthly magazine
muscles. Much of this has to do with the increased called Consumer Voice which empowers
migration of people and globalisation. As jobs consumers by informing them
take people from region to region and country about the concept of comparative
to country, they carry with them some ingrained testing and how consumers can
habits which are hard to change. One of these is use it to make the right buying
the lust for the tangy pickle. decisions.
Pickles come in literally thousands of bases Mother’s Recipe has also
and as many flavours. So Mother’s Recipe is been awarded the One Star
confronted with a task that is both humongous as Export House ranking by
well as traditionally complex. the Ministry of Commerce
Pickles have been a part of Indian cuisine and Industry for excellence
since time immemorial. Ancient Vedic scriptures in taste and authenticity.
mention pickles in detail. In the period since, So it’s not a surprise
every region has developed its own special pickle that the brand commands
and every home has a well-guarded, made-by- a strong presence
grandma recipe. especially in the Middle
Today, in millions of homes across India, glass East, Far East, Australia,
bottles with bright red caps sit perched on kitchen the UK, Europe, the US,
shelves. These are Mother’s Recipe pickles and Canada and Africa where
are as authentic and as traditional as pickles will a large Indian contingent
ever become. resides.
The seed for the success of Mother’s Recipe But what comes as a surprise
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is the fact that its socially-conscious parent –
Desai Brothers Limited – has developed a strong
CSR initiative. The company believes that the key
to India’s tomorrow is education. In pursuance
of this, it set up the H V Desai College 31 years
ago with the intent of imparting education to the
local Gujarati trading community. Today, this small
initiative has turned into a sprawling campus in
Pune offering first-rate infrastructure and excellent
faculty to 3000 students.
Another cause close to the company’s heart
is health. At the turn of the century, Desai
Brothers Limited inaugurated the H V Desai Eye
Hospital with the goal of providing eye care at
an affordable price. In the fifteen years since, it
has treated more than 1.40 million patients and
performed in excess of a quarter of a million
surgeries. More than 60% of these were carried
out free of charge. Soon after, the Kantalaxmi
Shah Eye hospital was set up to especially
treat the poor tribal people of this region.
Since inception it has performed over 28,500
operations free of cost and established an eye
bank that has collected over 2500 corneas to give
vision to the needy.
Two other priorities have found support with
the company: Vanarai – a people’s movement
that aims to provide sanitation facilities
in villages in general and for female
students in village schools in
particular. The other is Janaseva
Foundation – a charitable
institution founded on the ideals
of love and compassion for
the elderly, the disabled, the
destitute and the disaster-
affected. The Haribhai Desai
Old Age Home constructed
by Desai Brothers provides
free housing for over a
hundred elderly persons.
History
Desai Brothers
Limited, the owners
of Mother’s
Recipe, is now a
4th generation
family-owned
business house
with interests in
food processing,
tobacco, finance,
logistics, specialty
chemicals, health-
care and hospitality.

Keeping its experience of authentic Indian
cuisine as a motivator, quality as a non-negotiable
aim and customer satisfaction as the end goal,
Mother’s Recipe began a deliberate expansion.
New researched recipes and professional
expertise was acquired and was supplemented
with distribution strength. With involvement of
aggressive media promotions, the brand was re-
launched as a trusted and traditional Indian food
brand. As a sequel to the launch – and success –
Mother’s Recipe introduced whole new product
categories to include many of the components
that complete a traditional Indian meal.
Product
Mother’s Recipe is now an entire cooking and
culinary experience. It includes twelve categories
of products – pickles, cooking and condiment
pastes, curry and gravy pastes, chutneys, blended
spices, ready-to-cook mixes, ready-to-eat, instant
breakfast mixes, papads, curry powders, mango
pulp and canned foods in 150 different variants.
There is Andhra Avakaya, Karnataka Cut
Mango, Madras Thokku, Kerala Mango, Bengali
Mango, Punjabi Pancharanga, Gujarati Methia
Mango, Maharashtra Mango, Gujarati Gorkeri,
Choondo and Red Stuffed Chillies amongst
59 distinct recipes from virtually every
corner of the country.
These offerings have expanded
the brands’ portfolio of products
to now include nine variants of
papads, four variants of curry pastes
and twenty different spice mixes.
These contain no added monosodium
glutamate (MSG), no preservatives and no
hydrogenated oils – just 100% natural and 100%
fresh ingredients. To complete the offerings there
are fifteen classic Indian heat-and-eat dishes.
The company has a state-of-the-art processing
mothersrecipe.com
facility at Sarole on the
Pune-Bangalore highway.
The plant has been certified
under ISO 9001-2008 and
ISO 22000-2005 (HACCP),
and has been registered
with the US FDA, the Spice
Board of India and the Export
Inspection Council.
Recent Developments
Mother’s Recipe is on the
move. Supported by a
strong distribution network
and an even stronger brand
pull the company is ready
to launch new product
categories. In the ready-to-eat segment which
had suffered a slow beginning because consumers
then preferred freshly cooked foods, Mother’s
Recipe is set to launch ten exciting dishes. The
brand draws away from competitors on many
counts: it is microwavable, 100% natural and has
neither added preservatives nor artificial colours.
The category, thanks to changing lifestyles, a
growing youth population, the dissolution of joint
families, working women, increasing workload,
declining culinary skills, surging disposable incomes
and clever marketing techniques has shown
tremendous growth potential.
Another area Mother’s Recipe is exploring
is the cooking pastes category. What is feeding
this segment is the increasing need families have
for convenience. Tired and fatigued at the end
of a hard day’s work, one of the things that the
working woman doesn’t want is to grind and chop
and churn. She is happy if she can get a ready-
made paste that helps take some of the drudgery
out of cooking. Mother’s Recipe has developed a
wide range of ready-
to-cook pastes that do just that: ginger,
garlic, ginger-garlic and tamarind pastes. What
makes them special is the way they are made –
completely natural, preservative-free and as close
to homemade as homemade can get.
Ready-to-cook spices and gravy mixes are yet
another dimension that has been added to the
repertoire Mother’s Recipe has on
offer. Available in eight vegetarian
and twelve non-vegetarian variants
these food bases provide a new,
invigorating and tangy twist to
meals.
An integral part of traditional
palates is chutneys. Most Indians
miss their presence at meal
times and foods somehow seem
incomplete without them. Chutneys
are usually consumed with snacks
in restaurants or from street side
vendors; they are only occasionally
made at home, restricted in the
main by a short shelf life. Mother’s
Recipe has filled this need gap by
introducing its range of chutneys
for both the export as well as the
Indian market.
Furthering the conviction that
most people seek variety in their
Mother’s Recipe
foods but find little time to expend in the kitchen,
Mother’s Recipe has developed a wide variety of
instant mixes. These offer convenience, diversity
and taste. The range currently includes poha mix,
upma mix, dhokla mix and vermicelli payasam mix.
Being launched soon are on-the-go instant mixes
for the traveller and a fine, healthy, tasty lunch
box for the student.
Promotion
Most brands would require aggressive marketing
and large budgets to sell such a wide range.
All that Mother’s Recipe requires is product
placement and shelf space. Because the brand
moves rapidly off the shelves, shop keepers are
happy to accommodate them and shift off other
brands to make way for Mother’s Recipe.
Brand Values
Because it is the taste of love, a mother’s
touch to food is inimitable, irreplaceable
and unsurpassable. It is the taste through
which age-old traditions express themselves.
Everything that Mother’s Recipe does is a tribute
to this truth and is guided by a deep respect for
mothers and a genuine love
for the time-honoured
culinary traditions that
it strives to keep alive.
Mother’s Recipe cherishes
the trust millions of
Indians place on it.
It’s a good enough reason
to not compromise
on quality and
endeavour to make
what mothers
would approve of.
Things you didn’t know about
Mother’s Recipe
Everyday 350,000 bottles and pouches
t
of pickle are processed at the brand’s
Pune production facility
It’s the first Indian pickle brand to have
t
researched and perfected 59 regional
favourite pickle recipes
No pickle brand – Mother’s Recipe
t
apart – is available in every Indian
state and union territory
More than 3000 suppliers provide
t
Mother’s Recipe with fresh spices,
fruits – even packaging material
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