Kishan Rao, Bambino Agro Industries, Food Products, Secunderabad

Kishan Rao, 77, had earlier made a success of his cheroots business and later Ampro biscuits, but the vermicelli idea came after a visit to a trade fair in Germany, where he saw a pilot plant for the same. Today Bambino semia (vermicelli) upma and payasam (semia kheer) are the two most popular dishes in Telugu households. The company started its rst plant in Bibinagar, which is still its largest plant with a 200-tonne capacity. It also has plants in Delhi, Indore, Gurgaon, Nagpur and Tirupati. Most of its equipment is so sophisticated that the product is completely untouched by hand. The per capita annual consumption of vermicelli in India, says Kishan Rao, is around 100 gm. “My dream is to make it 1 kg. Quality is my ace card and the customer is my God. And if that means spending a huge sum on research, it’s only fair,” he says. Bambino is already No. 1 in the vermicelli segment in India and Southeast Asia. It exports products to the US, UAE, Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand and west African countries.