Man lost his job, now earns over 18 crores a year from a food stall

An Indian man based in London, who lost his job at a five-star hotel, now runs a Vada-pav business with an annual turnover of GBP500,000, equal to Rs18 crores.

Sujay Sohani from Mumbai, India, was working as a food and beverage manager at a five-star hotel in London but lost his job to the global financial crisis in 2009, which led to the start of a multi-million business.

During the financially difficult times back then, Sohani reached out to an old college friend Subodh Joshi, and as they discussed the means to earn a livelihood for the former, the duo ended up on an idea to give Londoners a taste of their hometown and thought of ways to sell Indian street food in the city – what better than a good, old, uncomplicated albeit flavour-packed vada pav.

To start with, the duo from Mumbai’s Rizvi College approached a Polish ice cream parlour owner, to rent a stall space, which they got for a large sum, and started their stall with a two-item menu, i.e. vada-pav and dabeli – a Gujarati equivalent of this vegetarian and Indianized version of American burgers.

For the Britishers to get to try their product, they initially offered free food to passersby for the taste test.

While vada pav is the most readily available snack or street food in India, it was definitely new for the people of London, who enjoyed the idea and taste of this Indian offering by Suhani and Joshi, thus, leading to the start of the business which now makes crores and is responsible for livelihood of many.

Their business started to grow and the business partners managed to move to a more spacious outlet on Hounslow High Street, opening as Shree Krishna Vada Pav on August 15, 2010.

Years later, they now have another outlet in Harrow, and the two-item menu has now expanded to over 60 varieties of India, particularly Mumbai’s popular street food, including vada pavs, dabeli, pav bhaji, vada missal, bhelpuri, paani puri, ragda pattice, kachoris and samosa. The weekend-special on the menu includes poha and sabudana khichdi as well and the business caters for all occasions.

Shree Krishna Vada Pav has an annual turnover of GBP5,00,000 (INR 5.5 crores and PKR 18 crores).