rajkot gujarat india key people bhikhubhai chandubhai & kanubhai virani products wafers namkeen revenue 10 000 crore us 1.5 billion number of employees 4000 website http www.balajiwafers.com balaji wafers and namkeen group based in rajkot gujarat india manufactures and distributes potato chips and other grain based bagged snacks in various flavours . 1 started as a micro business it has evolved into a rs 4000 crore company of quality products with an indigenous taste . 2 history edit the roots of the company date to 1972 when chandubhai virani and his brothers bhikhubhai kanubhai and meghjibhai migrated from a small village in jamnagar district to rajkot . their father popatbhai virani was a farmer who sold ancestral agriculture land and gave rs . 20 000 to them to venture into business . viranis invested money given by their father in farm equipments business but could not succeed and lost the money . chandubhai virani and his brothers started wafer business from a canteen of a cinema hall in rajkot in 1974 . till 1989 wafers were produced at the viranis house and distributed in and around rajkot city . 3 by the overwhelming retail success they were inspired to set a semi automatic plant instead of preparing wafers by the traditional frying method . this semi automatic plant boosted the quality taste and increased the sales . the unique fame of taste gradually reached to every part of gujarat and now it was time to take over the whole western india so the biggest automatic plant of gujarat came into the picture . in the initial stage balaji group had set up their plant at aji vasad industrial zone rajkot with their new concept of making potato chips . the main benefit they got is the readymade infrastructure availability due to which their cost reduced to large extent . they operated there for around 22 years . the key elements behind the phenomenal success of balaji are the strong fundamental values of virani brothers which primarily include trust passion and steady hard work balaji group then set up their new fully automatic plant near metoda g.i.d.c. which is in the area of the village named vajdi outside the town of valsad . 4 balaji group had a tremendous growth in the chips sector in the 2007 2016 decade outwitting the marks of major players like lays kurkure parle and bingo . the company aims at a similar market grab in the frozen foods and fries sector dominated by mccain foods by launching a new line of production under the iscon balaji foods brand . market share edit balaji s share of the local potato and vegetable chips market grew to 13.7 % in 2012 from 9.5 % in 2008 according to euromonitor while pepsico s share fell from 69.7 % to 56.8 % . balaji also dominates in the western market with a share of 71 % . in its home state gujarat it has a share of 90 % . 1 economic time recognized balaji group as sultan of wafers 5 inte old bloc balaji group is also a member of snacks food association.it is one of the best wafer production . references edit a b pepsico said to be exploring offer for balaji wafers . livemint . 2013 08 20 . retrieved 2014 05 11 . 2nd aim ama sheth foundation doctoral consortium . iimahd.ernet.in . retrieved 2014 05 11 . sme magazines small business entrepreneurs magazine online in india . 1 . share pdf.com . retrieved 2014 05 11 . shramana ganguly mehta 2009 12 23 . balaji wafers a name to reckon with in gujarat snacks market economic times . articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com . retrieved 2014 05 11 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title balaji group & oldid 741787992 categories food and drink companies of indiacompanies based in gujarateconomy of gujarat navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages edit links this page was last modified on 29 september 2016 at 17 42 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view