The carrot mysurpa melts in the mouth, as does the beetroot milk sweet. The mini gulab jamuns are super soft… After the sweets it is now the turn of crunchy karasev, a signature savoury of Gandhipuram Sri Muruga Vilas original Nellai Peria Laala Corner Sweets store in Gandhipuram. I am at one of their newly opened outlets. “We have 10 outlets in the city,” says the owner A. Mariappan. “One of our guests who came for the inauguration pleasantly surprised us. She told us that she was 13 years when our very first outlet opened in Gandhipuram. Now, she is over 60 and made it to the inauguration of this new outlet! We feel happy to have such loyal customers. They are the reason that we successfully completed 50 years in the city,” he says.
While Mariappan is the second generation owner, his son M. Raghu oversees the operations. After his post graduation in business from London, Raghu came back to give a thrust to the branding. “There is growing competition. We wanted to stand out. We opened more branches within the city. When you step into any of our outlets, the décor is the same. This ensures that the customers always feel at home,” he says.
Gandhipuram Sri Muruga Vilas’s journey started when three brothers from Tirunelveli -- S. Ramiiah Pillai, S. Shanmugham Pillai and S. Velayudham Pillai -- came to Coimbatore in search of a living. “They are my uncles. Since they came from a place that had a lot of sweet shops, they began doing the same in Coimbatore.
They made laddu, jelabi, mysurpa, and the famous Tirunelvei halwa, as well as savouries. It was a fresh market and their products were received well. So, they continued,” says Mariappan. Initially they employed people from back home but now the staff of over100 people are from everywhere. Their manager N. Rajamanickam has been with them for over 40 years. “I joined them in 1976 when we had just one shop in Gandhipuram selling traditional sweets. The kara sev was a big hit then and now too,” says Rajamanickam.
Mariappan says how their clientèle includes celebrities. Kavignar Vairamuthu is one of them. “He likes our cashew pakodas and kara sev. Whenever he is in the city, he visits us without fail,” he says.
From just a handful of traditional fare, the sweet shop now makes more than 100 varieties. Their central kitchen at Keernatham makes batches and batches of sweets and savouries in large volumes every day. While the Tirunelveli cooks make the traditional adirasam, poli, seedai, etc., cooks from the North India make the milk sweets. The goodies are then loaded on to mini trucks that move around the city, thrice a day, restocking the outlets. Says Raghu. “Though we employ the latest machinery in production, the kaimurkkus and laddoos are still handmade by people from Nellai.”
The owners make impromptu inspection visits to the various outlets. “We want to keep only fresh stock and maintain the trust of our customers,” says Mariappan. “We don’t compromise on quality. It is quality and taste that is bringing us customers of all age groups. We buy our ghee and butter from Uthukuli which is famous for it. We source urad dhal for our jelabi from Salem. We use only permitted food colours in our preparations.”
Now, they want to spread out to neighbouring Palakkad, Satyamangalam, Karamadai, Tirupur, and Mysore from where we have quite a few customers. “We have many plans. Besides expanding, we want to make more sweets and savouries using millets. And, introduce mini snack packets called Lala Snackers which will be available at other retail outlets too,” explains Mariappan.
They also want to hear from their customers. Says Mariappan, “We always leave feedback forms at our outlets. It is our customers who wanted us to make new halwa varieties. So, besides wheat halwa, we now offer milk halwa, and carrot and badam varieties. We also branched into milk sweets based on customer feedback. They trust us and we want to live up to that trust.”
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