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‘Spice King’ Dharampal Gulati, the red-turbaned grandfather with an elaborate moustache who danced unselfconsciously in TV commercials and spawned many an internet meme, died on Thursday. He was 98.
Gulati, the owner of MDH Spices, not only featured in TV commercials but also adorned the brand’s packages, helping Mahashian Di Hatti, or MDH, gain popularity across north India, overcoming the more regional appeal of spice brands in India. With his death, the brand has lost a passionate ambassador.
MDH took to Twitter to announce his demise—“Respect & Honour to The King of Spices”.
Gulati, who was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour, in 2019, was the face of the brand—his familial image generating trust.
Born in Sialkot in Pakistan in 1923, Gulati took over his family’s spice business and turned it into one of the country’s top packaged spice-makers. After Partition, his was a classic rags-to-riches story of a man who arrived in Delhi with ₹1,500 in his pocket. A class V drop-out, Gulati, at first, ferried passengers in a tonga that he purchased for ₹650, before renewing his family business with a small shop in Delhi’s Karol Bagh.
Today, MDH is popular in parts of India and has a strong focus on exports. MDH and Everest are the only two pan-India firms in the spices category, with the rest being regional. As of March, MDH had a 4.3% market share, with Everest leading at 9.3%.
For the year to March 2018, MDH reported a revenue of ₹1,095 crore while profit stood at ₹315 crore, according to data sourced from Tofler. MDH has manufacturing plants in Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Nagpur, while branches have been set up at Ghaziabad, Amritsar, Rajpura and Patna. The company sells basic as well as value-added spices such as “chaat masala”. It exports to the US, UK, Canada, Europe, South-East Asia and Japan, and runs a wholly owned subsidiary in London and a manufacturing unit in Sharjah.
“Food is a very strong cultural and emotive issue in India,” said Narayanan K.S., a food and beverages consultant who has worked in the packaged foods industry for over three decades. “What MDH has done is offer consistent quality, along with their value-for-money pricing.”
In a highly commoditized category such as spices, Gulati’s on-screen persona helped cut the clutter. “No Indian brand has exploited the persona of its owner as beautifully as MDH. He was the person who was totally involved in its front ended marketing,” said Harish Bijoor, brand strategy expert and founder, Harish Bijoor Consultants.
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