How a homemade snack brand has empowered thousands of women in India

On a cold December morning, a group of women, wrapped in colorful saris, warm shawls and woolen hats, huddled outside a three-story building in a busy area of ​​Delhi.

Within the walls of the building was a division of one of India’s oldest social enterprises, owned and operated by women.

The cooperative, now called Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad, was founded in 1959 in Mumbai (then Bombay) by seven housewives who cooked the humble papad or pappadom, a crunchy savory snack that is a staple of Indian food.

Sixty-five years later, the Mumbai-headquartered cooperative has spread across India with more than 45,000 women members. It has an annual turnover of 16bn rupees ($186m; £150m) and exports products to countries including the UK and the US.

Working mostly at home, the women in this cooperative produce goods including detergents, spices and chapatis (flatbreads), but the most popular product is the Lijjat brand.

“Lijat is a temple for us. It helps us earn money and feed our families,” says Lakshmi, 70, who runs the center in Delhi.

Ms. Lakshmi, who uses only one name, joined the cooperative about four decades ago after her husband’s death, forcing her to look for work.

“I didn’t finish my studies and I didn’t know what else to do. Then my neighbor told me about Lijat,” she says.

According to her, the decision to join the women’s cooperative changed her life. She now manages 150 women at the center.

For women like Ms. Lakshmi, the cooperative offers a chance to earn a decent income while balancing work at home.

Every morning, the women members take a bus chartered by the cooperative to the nearest Lijjat center. There they collect their share of pre-kneaded lentil and spiced dough, which they take home to roll into pappadomas.

“I would go home with this dough and do all the housework, feed the children and sit with my chakla (flat wooden board) and belan (rolling pin) in the afternoon to make small round thin papads,” says Ms Lakshmi. .

Originally, it took her four to five hours to cook 1 kg of dried lentils, but now she can produce that amount in just half an hour.

The head office in Mumbai procures raw materials such as lentils, spices and oil in bulk, mixes the flour and sends it to Lijjat offices across the country.

After the women make and dry the pappadomas at home, they bring them back to the center for packaging. Lijjat’s distribution network then transports the products to retail stores.

The company has come a long way since its foundation.

In the 1950s, newly independent India focused on rebuilding itself, trying to strike a balance between promoting small-scale rural industries and pushing back against large urban factories.

It was also a time when the government owned most of the factories in the country. Life was especially difficult for women as they had to negotiate a deeply conservative and patriarchal society in order to get an education and work.

The group of women who founded Lijjat – Jaswantiben Jamnadas Popat, Parvathiben Ramdas Thodani, Ujamben Narandas Kundalia, Banuben N Tanna, Laguben Amritlal Gokani, Jayaben V Vithalani and Diwaliben Luka – were in their 20s and 30s and lived in a crowded apartment in Mumbai. and looking for ways to support their families.

Their idea was simple – to work from home and earn money using the cooking skills that had been passed down to them through generations of women.

But they had no money to buy the ingredients and sought help from social worker Chhaganlal Karamshi Parekh.

He offered them a loan of 80 rupees ($0.93; £0.75 at today’s exchange rate), which at the time was enough to get them started.

But soon the women realized that there was no one at their pappadoma. Narrating the story, Swati Paradkar, the current president of the cooperative, says the women had to return to Parekh for help.

He again lent them Rs.80, but this time on the condition that they would pay him back Rs.200. Parekh – whom the women called Bapa (meaning father) – and other social workers took the pappadomas to local shop owners, who agreed to keep them only if they could pay after the products were sold.

Only one merchant agreed to pay the women immediately. “He started buying four to six packets daily and gradually the poppadoms became very popular,” says Ms Paradkar.

As the business grew, more women joined the cooperative – not as employees, but as co-owners who had a voice in decision-making. Women call each other Ben or sister in gujarati.

“We are like a cooperative, not a company. Although I am the president, I am not the owner. We are all co-owners and have equal rights. We all share the profits and even the losses,” says Ms. Paradkar. “I think this is the secret of our success.”

For decades, the cooperative produced poppadoms without the iconic Lijjat brand.

In 1966, the Khadi Development and Village Industries Commission, a government organization for the promotion of small rural enterprises, asked them to come up with a brand name.

The cooperative placed an ad in newspapers asking for proposals. “We received many entries, but one of our sisters suggested Lajjat. We changed it to Lijjat, which means taste in Gujarati,” says Ms Paradkar.

For decades, the co-op has enabled generations of women to achieve financial independence.

“Today I have put my children through school, built a house and married them,” says Ms. Lakshmi.

“Working here, I found not only income, but also respect.”

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