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What workedA mustard-oil ghani owner in Sunamganj, in a Prothom Alo report · Started in 1980

Seed at 75-80 taka, oil at 300-350, and 30,000-40,000 a month

Mustard oil pressed on a horse-drawn wooden ghani: seed bought at 75-80 taka a kg, three to three and a half lakh taka of it a year, oil sold at 300-350 taka a kg, leaving 30,000-40,000 taka a month after costs.

This elderly man in Narayantala, Sunamganj, has pressed mustard oil on a wooden ghani at his home since about 1980, with a horse turning the press and a person walking alongside for three hours a round. He works two shifts a day, 7 to 10 in the morning and 3 to 6 in the afternoon, and 10 kg of seed gives six kg of oil across two rounds. A whole year's seed has to be bought at once - three to three and a half lakh taka of it at 75-80 taka a kg - so most of the capital sits in raw material. The oil sells at 300-350 taka a kg and leaves 30,000-40,000 taka a month after every expense, with his 32-year-old son working alongside him. His late wife's insistence that the oil never be adulterated is what he credits for customers coming back, and the upazila administration honoured him on 31 December as one of six entrepreneurs.

Lessons

  1. 1.Refusing to adulterate is a workable market position when buyers assume packaged oil is cut
  2. 2.Buying a year's seed at once ties up three lakh taka: the real capital in this trade is the raw material, not the press

Published with the person's permission, without revealing who they are.

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