Of Seriously Good Stock

Ashwini Malhotra

Managing Director, Weikfield Foods Pvt. Ltd.

It's been in the family since 1956 and Ashwini is carrying forth the torch with pride. The second-generation businessman rejoices in the lineage he comes from and the powerful empire that Weikfield is today

If we may take the liberty of saying so, Ashwini Malhotra comes from some seriously good stock. If he has, running in his blood, even a small percentage of the genetic code of that of his father and grandfather, he should rejoice... for they were fine men of high calibre, the kind that only folklores are about.

Ashwini Malhotra is the Managing Director  of Weikfield Foods  Pvt.  Ltd., a company which was established  by Ashwini's father way back in April 1956. How it came to be is in itself a phenomenal story; which needs to be told in detail, but suffice it is for now to know that Satpal P Malhotra,  the founder, popularly known as SP, had a particularly tough youth. He lost his dad when he was 15 and mum when 19. He was rendered homeless by the India  Pakistan Partition at 21 when he arrived as a refugee from Rawalpindi, just  three  months   after  Independence, in  Poona,  and  had,  within  three  days, set up his business. He rented a shop, loaded it with crockery and crystal and other homeware, and even made a profit within the first hour of opening the doors of Pindi General Stores.

Says Ashwini with pride, "My dad was just a boy when  my grandfather  passed away leaving his business and enormous responsibility  on  the  frail  shoulders  of my dad." He  laughs as he adds, "If  my dad was small in build and quite short, my granddad  was the opposite;  tall and strapping, he wore salwar kurtas with the Pakhtoon head gear and commanded great attention. In his confident and booming voice he brought  the  roof  down  at  his auctioneering  company, Malhotra  Grand Auction Mart, where he was everybody's blue-eyed boy. He was at The Jallianwala Baug when Colonel Dyer gave the orders to open fire. In the tragedy that ensued, my grandfather was also assumed dead, when on the third day after the massacre, he quietly showed up at his own funeral!"

As it happened,  his grandfather  was saved from  the  bullets  because he  was buried under a pile of a whole horde of unfortunate others. If this wasn't enough, a  few years later  when  Ashwini's  dad's marriage was fixed for January 30, 1948, guess what happened on that day? Gandhiji was assassinated... the quirks of life!

For details of the life story of these remarkable men, we can only recommend you read, Doing It My Way, an autobiography of SP Malhotra which traces his interesting journey from Pindi to Poona. We couldn't put it down!
So when and how did Weikfield, now an iconic brand, flourishing for over six decades,   come   into   existence?  "Well, it started with custard powder. Being auctioneers in Rawalpindi, my dad and uncles, now settled in Poona, started buying government  and  army surpluses at  auctions  and  started  selling them  all over the country. One of the lots thus purchased in 1955  was custard  powder, a product  they knew nothing  about.  So a can was brought home and my mother tried making a pudding out of it. It was a bit lumpy, I believe, but rather delicious. Soon schools, hotels, restaurants and bakeries became big buyers of this custard, so my dad saw a business opportunity and decided to get to the bottom of it. He wanted to manufacture it himself! After a fair amount of R&D, trial and error and great effort, he succeeded in creating a good  product and the rest as they say is history. Other Weikfield products followed; baking powder, jelly, cornflour...
It's   an  impressive   history.   Today, the company, with multi billion rupees turnover, manufactures their products from three state-of-the-art facilities, reaching over  700  towns   and  cities  nationally.They export to over 13 countries in five continents.  They have diversified into many  verticals,  construction  included. But the most impressive has been the mushroom unit. Called Eco Valley, they have the capacity to  produce 10 tonnes per day of mushrooms! The logistics of distributing  even 1/10th  of this number, seems to baffle us!

But Ashwini, a marketing whiz who cut his teeth  at his family establishment itself, when straight out of Business Management school, and  whose  baby this arm of Weikfield was, seems quite nonplussed. "As a businessman, one has to take risks..."

Which only leads us to find out what makes this  gentleman  stay as cool  as a cucumber. ''How  do  you de-stress?" we enquire. "' swim," pat comes the answer. "And I play tennis, have been since 40 years!"

Hmm... sports is always the answer. You  can't   go   wrong   there.   Like  his forefathers, Ashwini has good taste, as also good homes and also an enviable lifestyle. In Poona, where he luxuriously swims in his own pool, he also had a tennis court until  recently. He  now plays the game religiously  at  least  four  times  a  week. He  goes off to  his home  in the hills of Panchgani, just as his dad and uncles did. He loves trekking there, climbing forts around Mahabaleshwar. He is a family man in a big way and dotes on his daughters, Avanti and Saachi, accomplished young ladies in their own right. Since Priti, his wife, loves history and all things historical, he makes it a point to choose hotels situated in town centres whenever they travel to Europe, the family's favourite destination.

No, he doesn't cook but enjoys eating. Punjabi food, as also Italian, Mediterranean and Japanese. But no thank you, not Gujarati or Rajasthani, please! He  loves watching historical stuff on Netflix,  hates sci-fi and likes reading autobiographies.

Post COVID, where is this tycoon travelling? "To a mountain,  or a seaside, maybe a forest, I love forests, too!"
That's Ashwini Malhotra, the chilled out sort.