There is barely a business across the globe that hasn’t been deeply affected by coronavirus. Yet, while most have seen considerable hardship due to lockdowns, social distancing and weakened consumer confidence, some have actually managed to flourish during the pandemic.
Praveen Kumar was one of the lucky few – with his frozen ready meal firm seeing turnover grow by 200 percent since the start of lockdown in March.
His eponymous brand was only launched last year but its business model – delivering frozen curries, rice and naan bread direct to UK homes via an easy online ordering system – has been hugely popular.
Pre-lockdown, the firm had just eight staff, but that has now grown to 18 within just six months, a success story that Praveen attributes to a simple combination of repeat custom and word of mouth.
“More and more people have been buying online so our orders have been going very quick, getting custom in from anywhere from Perth to London,” he explains. “The hardest part is getting people to order from you the first time. Once they taste it they will order again and again – and recommend to friends and family, share it on social media. That’s how we have grown.”
While his ready meal venture is relatively new, its success is no surprise. Praveen has built up his business acumen through years of hard work and dogged ambition, in a career that has led him right across the world before eventually settling down in Perthshire.
He grew up in a tiny village in southern India, in a family of farmers who produced chilli and spices on their field, but from an early age Praveen had a clear vision of what he wanted from life.
He decided to pursue a career in high-end hospitality, a world of glamour and luxury that he had seen through watching western films on the television. For his parents, who had never even seen a five-star hotel, it was a hard sell.
“They struggled to understand what my vision was: study hotel management and then go and work abroad. For them, that kind of thing doesn’t exist. But I am so stubborn, if I want something then I will work hard until I achieve it.”
His parents eventually saved up enough money to help Praveen get the training required to work in a five-star hotel in India. From there, he got a job at a Sandal’s resort in Jamaica, before moving to the Turnberry hotel in Ayrshire and then being headhunted by Gleneagles.
In 2009, he finally was in a position to become his own boss and open a restaurant – Tabla, in Perth. Praveen relied on investment from friends and family to start up Tabla, but once it was turning a profit he was able to establish two more businesses, an Indian cook school and then the Praveen Kumar ready meal firm.
“When I opened Tabla that was me going back to my roots, back to my passion of cooking. In my time working in the fields I would pick stuff and then come home and put something together and make a dish.
“But as a cultural thing, as a man in the house you weren’t meant to cook. So when I thought of cooking it didn’t go well with my family – but I was always the first one to break the rules. If you don’t break the rules then you don’t change.”
Tabla is now operating under reduced opening hours since re-opening after lockdown, while the Indian Cook School – which Praveen intended to expand at the start of 2020 following increased demand – is currently closed, unable to offer classes under Covid-19 rules.
But he isn’t feeling sorry for himself.
Instead, Praveen has simply spent more time focusing on his ready meal business, with the gains made there offsetting some of the losses encountered from his other ventures. He and his wife Swarna aim to produce a million meals a year by the end of 2021, with their current Perthshire production site offering the capacity to eventually produce up to three million meals every year.
So do his parents now understand the vision that the young Praveen had all those years ago?
“They are very proud of me. My dad goes on Facebook on his phone to show the village what I am up to – he is really proud, no doubt.”
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