“It took me a while to recover after battling COVID-19 in March 2020, which was really severe. The doctors were about to give up on me when I unexpectedly recovered,” recalls Kamaljit Kaur (51), a resident of Mumbai, Thane.
With a new lease on life, Kamaljit was compelled to reflect on her childhood, and memories of the fields and the food she ate before began to flood back to her. "Having access to fresh milk was a significant perk for someone who grew up in a tiny village in Ludhiana. We always had a reliable supply of ghee, paneer, and other milk-based products thanks to the fresh milk. The freshness of the milk was the one thing I greatly missed when I moved to Mumbai,” claims Kamaljit.
"Mom [Kamaljit] was usually making ghee and Panjiris (a dessert made in winter, especially for pregnant women) for my friends, and one of them noted how this had great commercial potential," says her son Harpreet Singh.
He continues, "My mom has played so many roles—daughter, wife, mother, and friend—but the one thing she hasn't done is earn her own money. So, for her and the rest of the family, starting a business at age 50 has been a very emotional experience.”
Beginning of Kimmu’s Kitchen
“I don't remember getting sick as a kid because I ate a lot of vegetables, fresh milk, butter, and ghee. The likelihood of getting the flu was maybe once a year. However, things changed after I got married and relocated to Mumbai. Life accelerated, and colds were frequently contracted here,” according to Kamaljit.
After conducting market research for over three months, Kimmu's Kitchen was introduced in December 2020. This new business specializes in farm-fresh ghee that is free of harmful additives, preservatives, and chemicals of any type. It is prepared using the classic Bilona technique and comes right from Kamaljit's village in Ludhiana. "In the first few weeks of operating the business, I bought milk from local Mumbra sellers. But something was missing, and I didn't enjoy the milk as much as I would have with milk from my village,” claims Kamaljit. Kamaljit began exploring ways to get milk from her village in Ludhiana to Mumbra without sacrificing the flavor or quality of her goods.
She adds, "I have never once bought store-bought ghee, which would be obscene. Ghee was always freshly produced at home, whether it was in my parents' Ludhiana house or when I got married and moved to Mumbai with my in-laws. This desire to introduce Mumbai to the flavor I was raised on inspired a business idea.”
The Bilona Method
There are several ways to make ghee, but Kanaljit and her family stick to a technique called Bilona. She continues, "In this technique, we must create ghee from curd rather than from butter or milk directly. A large portion of the ghee offered in stores is produced with butter or cream.
Cow’s milk is boiled and cooled. The milk is then given a tablespoon of curd and left at room temperature for the night. The next step is to churn the curd to remove the butter. The water is subsequently removed from this butter by boiling it, leaving just pure ghee remaining.
The ghee at Kimmu's Kitchen is made from buffalo milk, and according to Kamaljit, "There are days when we get close to 100 orders, and then there are days when we only get half of that. There are sometimes days when we receive no orders. So, even if it becomes very impossible to predict with certainty how the business will do, I am pleased with the direction it has taken.”
Harpreet, who also serves as Kimmu's Kitchen's Consultant Chief Technology Officer, explains how the entire operation has been set up, saying, "We come from a family of farmers and while the infrastructure was in there, we needed to make some alterations to meet our own company needs. We increased the number of buffaloes, made the current stove more ghee-compatible, and other changes to get this business up and running. We spent close to Rs 8 lakh on this setup.”
Ghee is produced in a single unit in a village near Ludhiana, and after production is complete, it is shipped to Mumbai for packaging and distribution.
Retail ghee bottles come in three different sizes: 220 ml, 500 ml, and 1 liter. The pricing of the 220 ml starts at Rs 399 and increases with the number of units ordered.
Earns Rs 20 lakh per month
Presently, Kimmu's Kitchen ships more than 4,500 bottles of ghee each month and generates monthly sales of Rs 20 lakh. According to Kamaljit, a percentage of the money made is used to provide services, such as feeding worshippers at gurudwaras. Harpreet continues with much delight, "Up until recently, we were just exporting within India, but only a few weeks ago, we received an order to send to Poland."
