Sweet fruits of labour
| Salim and Harris tell PRINCE FREDERICK how they built up their successful venture Fruit Shop on Greams Road |
TWO IS COMPANY Harris (left) and Salim
Barely out of college, Mohammed Salim started a plywood business in Choolai. A few years later, Harris Abdulla joined him as partner. It was a successful enterprise and they had nothing to complain about. But slowly, boredom set in. They were getting tired of looking at plywood day in and day out. At that time, they learnt about someone who wanted to let out a 250 sq.ft. commercial space on Greams Road.
The two bored timber businessmen took the space but kept it under lock and key for a long time. “We could not decide on a new business. In this state of indecision, six months went by,” recalls Salim.
With friends, Salim and Harris often played cricket at New College, the Gopalapuram Corporation Ground or at Harris’ uncle’s spacious residence opposite Anna Arivalayam. After cricket, they invariably went to a shop on Richie Street, where fresh fruit juices were served. Casually, over glasses of sweet lime juice, they decided one evening to start a fresh juice shop. “Initially, we thought it would be a second business,” says Harris.
Their families were appalled at the idea. “What do you know about making juices?" they asked, considering it a bad investment. Harris and Salim failed to convince them, but nevertheless went ahead with their “hare-brained idea”.
How it all began
“We were hunting for experts to run the shop,” reminisces Harris. They cobbled together a three-member team, and ‘Fruit Shop On Greams Road’ was open for business on June 16, 1995. Fifteen days on, they were faced with the threat of closure. The three young staffers, Roy, Arif and Ali got hold of a bike and went for a spin, well past midnight. “ When they reached Spurtank Road, they rammed into a buffalo.” Having sustained serious injuries, the three had to stay in bed for a few months. “We had to either close down or run the shop ourselves,” says Salim. “We decided to give it a try.”
“Surprisingly, collections rose to Rs. 3,500 a day from Rs. 500! We realised it made better business sense to be more involved. We would be up at 5 a.m. to purchase fruits and would be the ones to lock the shop at 1 a.m. Between these hours, we also managed the timber business,” says Harris. Working two shifts was beginning to tell on their health. Starved of sleep, Harris crashed his vehicle. He crashed once more. Clearly, they had to slow down. They brought down the shutters on the timber business.
“With ten outlets in Chennai and one in Dubai run in a highly professional, corporate fashion, we might today appear as if we followed a well-devised formula for success. Nothing can be farther from the truth,” says Salim. “The only thing going for us was our determination to take ‘Greams Road’ to every part of the city. Fearing we would be diluting our efforts to make this happen, we even gave up our restaurant ‘Galloping Gooseberry’, which was doing well.”
“We were like two bumble bees that bumbled into something great,” says Harris.
During that trying period, when Harris and Salim were mixing fruits and cutting plywood, they made a few mistakes. But they were graciously forgiven. Probably out of fatigue, one of them put more pepper than was necessary in Sam’s Pick Me Up (pomegranate juice with a dash of pepper).
“The juice had taken on a dark hue. The poor gentleman’s face changed after drinking it, but he left without uttering a word,” says Harris. “He returned the next day and told us gently that we had put too much pepper in his drink.”
Customer is king
Salim says customers such as this have been Fruit Shop’s main strength. “They forgave the occasional lapses and gave us feedback that helped improve our service,” he says.
Salim and Harris kept working on all the important areas — hygiene, health, pricing, flavouring and service.
“We use spotless white sugar. Our customers ask us if we use mineral water. The fact is: water goes into only six of the 120 juices we make. Our juices are mostly all fruits. Where milk is required, we use treated milk. Our ice is also treated. We thought of setting up a plant for ice treatment, but finally outsourced the work. Treated ice is made under our supervision,” says Salim.
“The boys at Fruit Shop are low on flamboyance. They are definitely not the ‘Hi, dude’ types. But are very polite and self-motivated.”
Salim and Harris say their unique flavouring is a big strength. It is one of the factors that has ensured continued customer loyalty and given the company a presence on Facebook and Orkut.
“Fans of Fruit Shop have created these profiles. They have discussions about our various outlets,” says Harris. “This is not surprising to us. All through the 14 years, we have not spent much on advertisements. We have grown mostly through satisfied customers who spread the word.”
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