Indian women entrepreneurs join Japanese friend to introduce Kaki – Japan’s famous baked rice crackers – in India
Kaki is the short name for “Kaki No Tane” – a common snack in Japan. It is made of rice, is baked, and not fried.
NEW DELHI. Three Indian women entrepreneurs – also well-traveled and foodies by nature have joined hands with a Japanese friend to introduce baked rice crackers – “Kaki no Tane” in India.
“Kaki” is the short name for the Japanese phrase “Kaki No Tane” – a common snack in Japan and is made of rice. It is baked, not fried unlike the majority of snacks sold and consumed in India.
Having branded it “Krumptious”, a term derived from ‘crunchy’ and ‘scrumptious’, which they believe the product is, they have been working extensively for the last three years on this project and finally launched it recently.
The product that has been launched is an all-vegetarian snack created especially for the Indian market. It has added Peanuts from India and is available in the Wasabi flavour currently.
Arunima Yadav and Paromita Chatterjee, both graduates of the Centre for Japanese Studies, JNU, have been providing Japanese language services under the company Japan Tsunagari in New Delhi since 2011. Passionate about everything Japanese, they kept exploring options of doing more with Japan.
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“It was about three years back, that we thought of introducing “Kaki No Tane” and started studying the Indian as well as Japanese markets for demand and sourcing respectively. A huge amount of market and product research went into it. Our Japanese partner Kazuki Moroi tried around 15 suppliers of Kaki in Japan before we were able to zero in on one from Niigata,” said Arunima Yadav, Co-founder, HEP Foods, that has introduced the product in India.
Arunima worked in the Japanese field for eight years before launching Japan Tsunagari. Her colleague Paromita Chatterjee too worked with Japan Airlines and AXA for several years and comes with 15 years of corporate experience with many years in Japan.
The duo joined hands with Harsheen Bharara, another woman entrepreneur from Mumbai who is into event management. They got together with Kazuki Moroi – a Japanese national who also runs an export-import company in Japan, and partners with Japan Tsunagari in importing Indian coffee to Japan.
“We are importing top quality Kaki from our source in Niigata – the hub of Kaki production in Japan, which we blend with Indian peanuts and package here. We have started selling in some of the stores in Delhi and NCR towns, and are soon going to push the sale through modern trade,” said Paromita Chatterjee.
Krumptious is available in Modern Bazar, Saket (New Delhi), Ichiba and Iroha in Gurgaon, as well as in select stores in Mumbai and Chennai. These women entrepreneurs also have plans to introduce the snack in pubs and bars and to add more flavours to the range in the next few months.
According to Arunima, Kaki is already available and sold in the Indian market by some other companies too but they are producing the same in India.
“We are importing Kaki from the authentic source in Japan, adding peanuts and packing the same here in India. So, we are serving authentic Kaki here. HEP Foods was conceptualized by well-traveled foodies. We aim to bring in the flavours of various countries to the Indian market. Rising urbanization, increasing exposure to international cuisines and an interest in new products form the base of our concept,” added Arunima.
