What is the cost of ideas? For Bangladeshi brand ‘Pran,’ the number is in hundreds of thousands ‘taka’. Long before the market giants of the biscuit industry in India invented potato biscuits, a Bangladesh brand had already patented it and won over the customers of India. In July, Britannia, one of the largest players in the Indian biscuit industry, announced the launch a new line of biscuits called ’50-50 Potazos’. The company communicated that the new biscuits will be thin, crispy and plays on the familiarity of the ‘masaledar’ flavours of the potato chip, but in the form of a biscuit. The ’50-50′, being an already market common item, was a great starting point for the company to introduce a new product. Britannia is not the only market giant to make this venture in recent times: ITC has also launched a ‘Sunfeast All Rounder’. This newfound interest in the biscuit market by Indian manufacturers is not unaided: the market giants are aiming to replicate the popularity that the Bangladeshi ‘Pran’s Potata’ biscuits have in India, especially the eastern regions.
Pran-RFL, of which Pran Foods is a subsidiary, was started ten years after Bangladesh’s independence in 1981. Set up by a retired major general in the Bangladesh army, Amjad Khan Chowdhury, who wanted to see the young nation become economically strong and free of poverty, and empowering its farmers through agribusinesses, the company has now grown much bigger: and somewhat achieved its goal.
While it ruled the domestic market, Pran first’s ever import was to Agartala in India’s Tripura, in 1997. The first consignment was simple. In Bengali, it is known as ‘chanachur,’ while in Hindi, the word is ‘namkeen’ and often recognized as ‘chakna’ in many parts. The first consignment sold in India without hesitation, and soon the border separating the country became just an arbitary line. Taste palettes and flavours trumped the production location of a food item. In the years since, several of Pran’s products have achieved cult status in India: The litchi drink, the ‘potato crackers’ chips, which sometimes beats competition like Lays. But the stand-out product from the company, has been one in a bright red packet: Potato biscuits, with Pran’s label ‘Potata.’
The potato biscuit, when it first debuted, was at the center of the debate: Is it chips or is it a biscuit? Or is it just processed chips in the guise of a biscuit? The answer, Kamruzzaman Kamal, the Director of Marketing at PRAN-RFL Group tells News18, is none of those.
“There’s this notion that chips are ‘junk food,’ they’re unhealthy. The notion isn’t the same for biscuits. So often it’s a competition of tasty vs healthy, and we decided to combine the two things. Create a product that tasted like chips, but was a healthier alternative, i.e. by being a biscuit. We wanted it to be snack item, but still resonate with everyone," Kamal said.
The idea of putting potato in a biscuit also comes from a novel idea. Bangladesh is a huge producer of potato, and in South-east Asia, potatoes are either cooked in dishes, or eaten as chips; it was not eaten in any other form. Aiming to create multiple use of this agricultural crop which Bangladesh has a surplus of, the potato was introduced as a substitute for wheat and rice flour in biscuits. With the aim to produce biscuits with the base as potatoes, the idea behind ‘potata’ took root.
The innovation was a simple recipe: combining two things that had never been mixed before. It could be a hit or a miss. “But growing is a continuous process. If you don’t innovate, you become irrelevant," says Kamal. The recipe worked. With a base of potato, and a ‘secret recipe’ of condiments that gave it the unique chip flavour, ‘Potata’ became a hit in Bangladesh, and then eventually in India.
Currently, ‘Potata’ itself is produced and manufactured only in Bangladesh and exported everywhere else. In eastern parts of India, the familiar red packet of biscuits is common in most stores. ‘Pran biscuits’ also rings a bell of recognition, if the product name is forgotten. Pran is also sold on Amazon in India, but through an importer who lists it there. Reviews from the product on Amazon prove that it has transcended just eastern India.
“These biscuits came as a major surprise to us. We did not expect them to be so thin, spicy and tasty!! We ordered them because someone on Twitter described them as “good" and we thought they may make a good change. But now we plan to order them regularly. They also came beautifully packaged and not one biscuit was broken," reads one of the top reviews from India.
In 2015, Pran set up its first factory in India in Agartala, the same place where Pran’s first-ever consignment to India was shipped. But at present, the Indian factories do not produce ‘Potata.’ The pandemic, especially the first few months, had impacted business, when borders closed, sometimes without a moment’s notice. The entire process had stopped, owing to national and regional lockdowns, but Pran has recovered since, Kamal shares with News18. While Pran’s success in India goes back as far as 1997, ‘Potata’ becoming a cult classic in India was something they didn’t anticipate. In Bengali, ‘Pran’ means ‘life’- a word which is also used to describe something people hold dear to them. In India, it seems to have resonated enough, for the Indian market to hold dear the first of its kind potato biscuits.
“Just across borders, but our taste buds and preferences are the same," Kamal added. ‘We are grateful for the reciprocation we get from India."
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