Try this, it’s plain chocolate without any sugar,” says M. Mahadevan, picking out a bar of fresh chocolate from a pile, wrapped and gleaming in a bin marked “Maple Leaf”.
It’s a scene straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “Hot-Breads Mahadevan” introduced the first fully automated, open-to-view bread-making pastry and bread café in Chennai, way back in the 1980s. His latest venture, a chocolate factory with French inputs, is set in the midst of a leafy neighbourhood of Chennai’s school district.
It’s as transparent as a chocolate box of clear plastic. You can press your nose to the glass walls and watch the chocolates being made. The air is filled with the aromas of cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids. Gleaming jars filled with sugared fruits await their turn in a refrigerated cabinet. Chopped nuts, dates, chocolate nibblets and other garnishes are on display.
Trendy in a designer shirt, Mahadevan dashes in between small conveyor belts that carry pre-moulded knobs of white chocolate that are being dunked in a coating of melted brown chocolate, talking all the while. He picks up a young chocolatier who supervises operations and displays him like a piece of chocolate that has popped off a tray.
“This is what I enjoy doing the most, ” he says, “Teaching people to fish, teaching them a trade.” The young chocolatier, curly hair encased in a clear plastic cap and wearing white overalls, is a typical south Indian lad. He’s probably never seen Mahadevan before but, like everyone else, he succumbs to the ambient heat of his boss’ enthusiasm.
Mahadevan’s real talent is in moulding young people as easily as his chefs roll out a pastry or turn a tandoori roti
He is one of the several thousand people Mahadevan has placed on the conveyor belt to success by giving them basic training in a specific area of a culinary skill and sending them to distant corners of the world.
Besides the bakeries, Mahadevan has mixed and matched different types of cuisines. He has married existing brands and found trading partners all over the world. The French have learnt to relish croissants with tandoori chicken fillings, the Americans in San Jose love the vegetarian curry puffs, as do the South Americans, Botswanians and South Africans, while Indians in Dubai can look forward to authentic south Indian sambhar and chutney that go under the Saravana Bhavan brand. His code name should really be “Franchise King”, but this would be to take away from the secret of Mahadevan’s success.
His real talent is in people management. He is able to mould young people as easily as his chefs roll out a pastry, or turn a tandoori roti. The Chennai operations are, in effect, the training ground for the cooks, bakers, chocolate makers, patissier and dosa experts who have replicated the Mahadevan brand in different parts of the world.