Joseph Rajesh’s Bigbillion Food & Beverages Pvt. Ltd. and tea business has clocked a turnover of Rs.7 crore. His firm started with just a Rs 50,000 investment.
Joseph Rajesh, the founder of Black Pekoe and Tea Boy chai shops, once used to make merely Rs. 5,000/- each month. He is from Mochakottam Palayam, a small village in Tamil Nadu’s Karur district, and has joined the ranks of other educated young people who have established profitable tea companies in the country.
Joseph, who is married and has two children, began with a 100-square-foot tea business at a mall in Velachery, Chennai, in 2017. Under his firm Bigbillion Food & Beverages Private Limited, he presently runs a network of 78 shops across Tamil Nadu. Joseph’s franchise has been taken up by a large number of IT experts and bank personnel.
You can buy a cup of tea for a price of between Rs 10 and Rs 30. In addition to tea, they provide snacks and culinary products such as egg puffs, paneer puffs, chicken puffs, and banana cakes in their stores.
Joseph hails from a low-income family that lived in a 200-square-foot house with a single room and a kitchen in his hamlet.
His father earned Rs 8,000 a month working in a bus body building workshop in Karur, while his mother was a housewife. He has a younger brother who works as a head constable for the police department.
Even while in school, he used to do odd jobs to supplement his income. After finishing Class 10, he worked as a worker in a handloom unit for a while, earning around Rs 500 per month.
Joseph says he got the jobs to cover his own costs without putting his parents under a financial burden. his.
In 2006, Joseph received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from Bishop Heber College in Trichy.
He also joined a few Multilevel Marketing (MLM) organisations and began selling cosmetics and vacation packages.
Joseph recounts his early days of struggle following college, adding, “I could hardly earn about Rs 5,000 per month.”
I applied for jobs in other countries but was unsuccessful.
He began working as a connection professional with Axis Bank in 2012. He then worked for Andhra Bank and State Bank of India, where he marketed insurance and ascended to the post of Area Manager.
In the same year, he moved to Chennai and opened his first tea business, a Black Pekoe outlet at Grand Mall, in a 100-square-foot location behind an escalator.
Joseph, who opened his first store with just one employee, explains, “I started the tea business because I love tea. The outlet was a smashing success. We made more than Rs 8000 every day in sales.I was overjoyed to find that I was finally doing well and making nice money.”
Encouraged by the profits, Joseph invested Rs 20 lakh in his second store, a larger 900-square-footer in Alandur.
He borrowed money from a bank to open the business, but parking concerns caused problems for clients, and the shop was closed in four months.
But Joseph did not want to give up. With a Rs 3 lakh investment, he launched his third location in Ramanujan IT City – Neville Tower in OMR and began offering franchises. It proved to be a milestone, and there has been no turning back since.
According to Joseph Rajesh, “Our turnover was Rs 7 crore in 2020-21, and we expect it to reach Rs 10 crore in the current fiscal year. This year, we have opened more than 60 new locations. Our franchise has attracted a large number of IT and banking specialists. Some have quit their employment, but others continue to work and manage the company.”
He says, “Our franchisees earn between Rs 40,000 and Rs 1 lakh each month. So far, 13 women have bought into our franchise and make roughly Rs 5 lakh in sales every month. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the majority of these women’s husbands lost their employment.”
Joseph now intends to expand Bigbillion Food & Beverages by opening 500 new locations. With 500 stores, he is looking to sell 1 crore cups of tea every day.
