Started with Tk 92,000 and 3 workers, now 35 workers; yet raw-material prices make loan repayment hard

An entrepreneur with a diploma in mechanical engineering worked for a contracting company; when its owner died in 2009 he decided to do something on his own. Visiting fairs, he noticed that village snacks like nuru and moa from his childhood were hard to find in the city, and many people avoided them as unhygienic. After talking with his wife, he started in early 2010 with Tk 92,000 of savings and three workers. He bought weighing and packaging machines from Chawkbazar, had nuru, phulpitha, moa, nimki and other items made in Pabna, Narsingdi, Tongi and Baddha, and sold them packaged under the 'Shotej' brand. At first supershops refused to stock the products; after about two months Meena Bazar took them first. Sales were Tk 76,000 in the first month and doubled the next. They then rented a bakery in Tongi to make the products themselves, built a factory in Uttara in 2015, and a new one in 2018 to meet compliance needs. In late 2019 he spent 15 days in China and had five machines built, raising output four to five times. By 2022 they had HACCP and ISO 22000 certificates. Today they make about 30 products with 35 staff and more than 40 suppliers. But he says raw-material prices have risen over the past few months, repaying the bank loan is now a burden, and holding the business together is getting hard.