How Cocoguru Adigemane started
Cocoguru Adigemane was started by Keshava Ram Bonanthaya and Suprabha K Bonanthaya, a husband-and-wife duo. Below is Keshava Ram’s account of how they entered the restaurant business.

My well-wishers often ask how I got into the restaurant business from coconut oil. They find it strange for a person of my nature. Though I started the coconut oil business and built Cocoguru from scratch, they consider it an improvement over our family’s coconut oil business. The account of how I started Cocoguru is here.

I am trying to build a restaurant where people like me, and I would like to eat. Since starting the restaurant, I have always eaten there and never cooked food at home.

Food preference before 25 years of age
During my youth, I only considered the taste value of food, completely ignoring the ingredients and health aspects. So, I liked North Indian dishes, chats, bakery products, Chinese food, and packed foods. The spicier and sweeter, the better. My mother warned me about the health hazards of eating such foods, but I was also curious about the world’s experiences like all kids. My school teachers would also inform us about the dangers of having food with preservatives and other synthetic flavours. I used to mock my mother and other relatives for carrying foods prepared at home when they travelled. Instead of having fresh food readily available in restaurants, why do you take so much pain in preparing food at home and carrying it only to eat stale food later?

While working at Tata Elxsi, I enjoyed a great lunch with tasty delicacies at a subsidised price. However, I saw our CEO taking rice with curd while my manager brought home-cooked food. This made me wonder why they took that action. Surely, they are earning enough to eat better food than that.

Food Choice after 25 years of age
Later on in my life, my body wouldn’t tolerate synthetic food ingredients. Just thinking about the after-effects of such foods created an adverse feeling for me. Researching food and nutrition was not my cup of tea, but once I started the coconut oil business, I had to study it. Then I discovered how food is made tasty and why our bodies can’t bear it. I understood the dangers of refined oils, hydrogenated fats, maida (refined wheat flour) and sugar. I read books and articles by well-renowned nutritionists like Rujuta Diwekar. I listened to talks of Dr B M Hegde, where they were vouching for homegrown unrefined oils like coconut oil in south coastal India, groundnut oil in the Deccan plateau, and mustard oil in northern India.

I worked in Japan for a brief period, and the food there was of higher quality. Fresher vegetables meant the food was still tasty without much salt and spices. So, I started enjoying bland food, enjoying the taste and flavour of vegetables rather than overpowering them with spices.

After returning to India, I looked for restaurants serving basic, homely food. Our family get-togethers happen at local restaurants that serve North Indian food. Before the party, I fill my stomach by eating at home so I can sit through the party without taking any soups, manchurians, gravies, juices, or ice creams. I would rather have some basic Dose or Chappati throughout the party.

Cooking Oil
All restaurants use refined oils (either palm olein or sunflower) for cost, reusability and region neutrality. I found an exception in Udupi, where they use only coconut oil. The staple cooking oil for this region was coconut oil, but now almost everyone has converted to refined oil for cooking, and coconut oil is used only for hair. Coconut Oil consumption has hit rock bottom now. With the advent of COVID-19, there has been a small revival in the usage of coconut oil. Personally, I feel coconut oil tastes great; it is the one secret ingredient that makes any food edible. I am fond of oil-fried items at home like poori, podi, chips, etc. But outside, I don’t eat them at all, and I can’t stand the pungency of refined oil, especially sunflower oil. As a promoter of a leading coconut oil brand in the region, I wish to revive the usage of coconut oil for cooking here. I intend to do it by setting an example of preparing delicious local food using coconut oil.

Homely
Restaurants are known to provide commercially viable food items. However, we intend to disrupt the industry by providing homely food that is commercially difficult and taking up the challenge. Our customers should feel light in their stomachs even after a heavy meal. Ladies at home are not housewives anymore; they work. The task of cooking and cleaning vessels can be daunting to them. We look to provide homely food to such families when ladies like to relax.

Hygienic
My mother and relatives always tell me how dirty restaurants and bakeries are. This has been true in small-budget restaurants. When cleanliness is maintained in bigger restaurants, food items cost much more. We intend to change this stigma in the industry by offering affordable food while maintaining great hygiene and cleanliness.

Local brand
We have built a strong local client base for coconut oil in Cocoguru. It is a brand that stands for high-quality, pure coconut oil that people trust and pay a higher price than other local brands. A restaurant with the same brand and values of quality, hygiene, purity, ethics, and honesty can be built with hard work and patience. We started building the brand Cocoguru to make various coconut products. Now, we are pivoting towards becoming a food product brand for the local market.

Traditional foods
Whenever I visit a new place, I visit the local tourist spots and eat local food. I get a lot of such opportunities because of sales visits and seeing new sites. But if we look around at the local restaurants, they don’t promote local foods; they focus on promoting adopted cuisines. If I go to the neighbouring states of Andhra, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, I will enjoy their local food. Mangaloreans have succeeded in the restaurant industry and have set up great hotels outside, such as in Mumbai, Pune, and Bengaluru. Many of them name their hotels in association with Udupi and Mangaluru. Unfortunately, they don’t offer typical Mangalorean food. So, it is time we celebrate our local traditional cuisine. There are so many of them. They are all good for our health and tasty here.

Direct to consumer
At one point in time, while running the coconut oil mill, it turned out to be increasingly exhausting to manage the sales team; hence, I shifted my focus to B2B business. While B2C business is more about the brand, with B2B, it is about the commodity. The move was terrible, and I realized that my strength was building a brand rather than commodity trading. Managing the sales is a pain that has to be suffered, but selling small consumer packs as a brand is great. As a brand, Cocoguru started as a mass brand and slowly moved on to become a premium brand. Building a premium brand has barriers to managing shopkeepers and our sales force. I have the experience of overcoming them. However, with a restaurant, the product does not need to go to the retailer before it reaches a consumer; it is directly sold to the consumer (D2C). For a brand, it is about the consumers; retailers are only a means to the end.

Higher gross margin, value addition
Coconut Oil or edible oil is a high-value and low-margin business because of low value addition. At Cocoguru, we have built a higher value addition in packaging, branding, marketing, and distribution to enjoy higher gross margins compared to other players. Restaurants that way have very high gross margins because of tremendous value addition from food ingredients to tasty dishes served to customers and an aura built around it in the form of a brand. So, for my strengths, this is the way to go.

Stabilisation of the coconut oil business and looking for the next challenge
The Coconut Oil business was built from scratch. I had no experience of building and running a business before. I had to learn all aspects of business, like accounting, sales, pricing, distribution, purchase, etc, from scratch, and it took a long time. It took about 6 years to start making profits. Starting with a 1:1 debt-equity ratio, the cumulative losses widened to such an extent that the entire equity portion got wiped out, and debt was the only source of funding. Then, we started making profits and repaying debt. Now, we have almost fully repaid the debt. The team is set, processes are established, product quality is consistent, and no new investments are necessary for the plant, machinery or assets. We have built a solid local and online client base. The only work remaining is to increase the sales. Building a team that works without my involvement frees me to take up the next challenge.

Suprabha
Suprabha used to work for Cocoguru Coconut Oil before the delivery of our first child, Kshipra, in 2017. Then, with the delivery of a second child, Kshiteesha, in 2018 and bringing them up till they went to school. She couldn’t find the time and energy to work professionally. Now, she has decided to take the plunge into difficult waters again. The coconut oil business has matured and is functioning without her involvement. She feels she has lost touch with the profession and is reluctant to get back into it. Instead of the restaurant being a new business, she feels she will have a lot of ways to contribute.

Children
Children are used to getting a lot of attention from us. I used to spend all my post-working hours with them. I taught them chess, science, nature, and mythological stories. Suprabha spends the whole day developing them, taking care of their food and school, drawing, clay, swimming, taking extra classes, and teaching them values. With the start of this business, our attention towards them will take a back seat for the next 6 months to 1 year until the business is established.

My Parents
My parents were vehemently opposing the idea of starting this business. However, they know my stubbornness and have given up opposing me. Once we have started, they support me in delivering the best. My mother takes care of the children. To my daughter Kshipra, Ajji is her favourite person ever. Kshipra calls her Chaatha or Abbe out of love. My son Kshiteesha enjoys gardening with my mother, where he gets to dig out mud and extract underground vegetables.

Suprabha’s Parents
They have always supported us through all the difficult and good times. They are proud of the business we have built so far. The fact that they got their darling daughter married to a yet-to-be-established businessman is a testament to this. They take care of the children for a few weekends.

Coconut oil mill employees
They understand their roles and are performing well. They don’t need handholding to do their routine activities. They happily perform any duties required by the restaurant. The coconut oil business runs without me actively performing the day-to-day activities. Though expensive, this is the advantage of building a team that works without its owner. It allows the owner to build something new without impacting the existing business.