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The toil for oil

PHOTOS : S. JAMES

Buoyant V.R. Muthu is full of innovative ideas

Unaware of his profile, if you simply hear him speak, you may be left a tad puzzled about his real profession.

Sample this: He tells me indefatigably that diseases of joint pains, psoriasis, asthma, teeth and gums, cracks in the heels have a common treatment and cure. He passionately reels out the concept of oil pulling and underlines its importance in maintaining good health and you wonder whether he is armed with a medical degree.

Statistics follow. “If every individual in Tamil Nadu does oil pulling, it will straightaway open up a market of Rs.2,000 crores. And capturing even 10 per cent of it is good enough.” Is he a market analyst or strategist?

“When nobody initially believes in magic remedies, distribute the product free,” he continues. A philanthroper?

“We should be able to conquer the force of any disease with the force within us. Self-defence wins over the power of a disease.” The philosopher comes out.

“Like we clean the entrance of our homes daily to prevent dust or dirt from entering, mouth is the entry point of our body and has to be kept clean. Just 20 minutes of preventive therapy daily with oil pulling will yield results in no time.” A concept seller?

By roping in popular Tamil film director Bhagyaraj and actor Jyothika for popularising his product, the portly Chairman of VVV & Sons Edible Oils Ltd., V.R.Muthu, ensured that people did not press the remote and switch channels when his commercials came on screen.

“When you have good quality stuff, why not roar about it,” declares the 56 years old businessman, who actually loves to talk and talks about everything else other than what he sells. So is he a voracious reader? This sought after guest speaker on time management and business/success mantra at various academic institutions across Southern Tamil Nadu flatly denies: “I only read what is relevant for my talk.”

Now, I am halfway through my copy on the man who sells 14,000 tonnes of oil and sits pretty over an empire worth Rs.240 crores, yet the Weekend chat is yet to begin!

He keeps me engaged with his oratorical prowess. “My name is V (read We). R (read Are) Muthu. That is to say the 1.5 million housewives who vouch by the Idhayam brand of sesame (gingelly) oil are with me,” smiles the Virudhnagar-based ‘Idhayam’ Muthu.

“It is an interesting coincidence. As a child I learnt a Tamil rhyme based on numbers and in the last line the entire class would chant, “en peyar muthu (pearl)”. The chant is perhaps audible in the edible oil market of South India even today.

Muthu’s grandfather started the business of selling sesame oil from Virudhnagar in 1943. “People used to say even a king becomes a pauper if he has five daughters. But my grandfather struck gold selling sesame, coconut and ground nut oil with his brothers.”

Muthu’s father V.V.V. Rajendran founded the Idhayam group in 1986, eight years after his son joined the “family business waiting for him”. A meritorious student who always obeyed his parents, Muthu actually lost his grades when his father sent him to Bombay University for graduating in Commerce. “From a disciplined and protected life, I was suddenly exposed to different ways of life and the world. In retrospect, those three years helped me in maturing as a person rather than learning off the text books.”

After completing three years in Chartered Accountancy later in Chennai, Muthu returned to his family, which, he found, was content with its business in mainly two districts – Ramanathapuram and Virudhnagar.

“But I sensed an opportunity in the other untapped districts and went ahead with a door-to-door campaign with a 40 ml free sachet of our sediment-free sesame oil in districts of Tirunelveli, Dindigul, Nagercoil, Tiruchi, Salem.”

Till then sesame oil was selling like brinjal in a vegetable market with many small-scale producers in small towns. Only our family branded it as Anandham from 1943 to 1986, till my father chose Idhayam (heart) and we ran it separately popularizing it all over the State.

The advertisement blitzkrieg on television aimed at women along with stress on quality boosted the sales like never before and even crossed borders serving the Tamil diaspora in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Europe, the Gulf, Canada, USA, Australia and Moscow. “Wherever Tamils are, v.r,” he smiles again.

"If a product has to sell, it should be available and visible. Our strategy is based on this. It has worked wonders," says Muthu, adding that his company’s focus is on “small customers because they are big numbers.”

“Our success comes from the high degree quality care taken in cleaning the seeds. That is why we are the most expensive brand selling at Rs.120 a litre. Last year, when we priced it at Rs.150/litre, we lost 15 per cent of our customers but we did not compromise on the quality of our product. It brought us back our customers and we reduced the price by Rs.30 a pack this year.”

While Idhayam rules the roost in Chennai and several smaller cities across the State, the company has introduced “silent ads” in places like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Vizag, offering 500 ml packets free to customer coming for purchases to big departmental stores every fortnight. “If we give 50 gm packets, it is mostly given away to the maids. But half-a-litre packet is surely tried out by the lady of the house. And once, they get a taste of it, they return for more after 15 days. Our oil does not froth because it is thoroughly cleaned off chaff, stones, sand, splinters, dust, immature seeds…,” Muthu brims.

“Unless you are a diehard optimist, you can not survive in this world. But as a businessman you have to keep growing in order to be safe. God does not give everything to everybody. You have to be happy with what he gives you and strive for the rest with your ideas and risks,”

Right now, Muthu is enjoying his work and family consisting of two daughters, a son and three grandchildren. His wife, Malarvizhi, is his best feedback provider, but she says though she is full of ideas, they are hardly accepted by her husband.

What, however, passes off peacefully is their early morning walks. Travelling 12 days a month, this ardent tennikoit player does not miss the opportunity either of watching a movie in a multiplex whenever he is in a big city.

When he forgets to talk about his charity, his wife reminds that he is into multiple activities like social welfare and medical schemes for aged couples, meeting educational needs of poor and orphaned children in Virudhnagar. The family also runs an orphanage, the Idhayam Rajendran residential school and Kamaraj College of Engineering & Technology.

But his primary concern is that good quality sesame seeds are not available throughout the year and hence they have to be carefully sourced from Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan during different seasons. “Instead we can grow sesame in the South Indian States and aim at enhancing the production from 500 kg to 1500 kg per acre and meet the demand by sowing on 7,000 acres and harvesting on another 7,000.”

Given his drive and penchant for achieving multiple things, Muthu may as well proceed to become a ‘til’ grower in the near future. He informs that his son is now into improving productivity and may be the day is not far when lakhs of customers will find Idhayam’s gingely oil tasting like ghee.

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