But the young man had other plans, he did not want to rest on his family’s laurels, he wanted to create something unique and innovative, he had this urge to explore into an area that no one had ever thought of before. And Lo! He struck upon an idea - A brand new and novel retail concept. He wanted to start a showroom selling Nuts & Spices. Weird, absurd, risky were all comments that he heard when he gave shape to his idea. An old saying states “Path breakers are Path finders” and that is what the young mind of Sunil Sanklecha achieved with his original idea and today it is a booming business and an up-market retail chain called ‘Nuts ‘n’ Spices’ with 7 stores in vantage points of Chennai. The journey began in the year 1999….

Sunil Sanklecha had been toying with the idea of having an organized store, purely concentrating on food products from the early 1990’s and in the year 1999 he decided to venture out and penetrate the retail market from the heart of the city.   He found a suitable place in Nungambakkam and opened the first store in June 1999 having dry fruits, spices, tea, imported food products, chocolates, biscuits and syrups.   The presentation was neat and all products were shelved unlike a traditional store.

      

The going has been good these seven years with seven stores at Nungambakkam, Spencers Plaza, Adyar, Anna Nagar, T Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Kilpauk and plans for more.  They are also opening their first store outside of Chennai in Pondicherry soon and they would duplicate the same system in other cities.

‘Cup ‘n’ Saucer is also a chain of Nuts ‘n’ Spices which happened accidentally’ says Sunil.  In the year 2000, when they were trying to get a lot of different teas from different parts of the country they found that there were teas as expensive as Rs.10000 per kilo. So they decided that if the customers could have a taste of that tea then they will appreciate its price.  Thus Cup ‘n’ Saucer was started where they store tea packets of myriad rates and specialties, wherein they prepare and serve tea to customers before they choose to buy it.  Today Nuts ‘n’ Spices along with Cup ‘n’ Saucer provides more than 35 different food and tea products with extensive and creative packing to suit any special occasion for customers.

Nuts ‘n’ Spices began with a back office of a modest 150 sqft but today they have a whooping 5000 sq.ft of back office where they grind, clean, check and pack their spices.  Sunil says that their strength has been people who have been with them over the years, some from the time they started.  Other contributing factors have been attitude, hard work, dedication and consistency of their overall team. ‘There was skeptism when we started due to the exorbitant rents we were paying and the investment we made on infrastructure.  The market never thought we would survive beyond one year.  First three years is very crucial for any business and we gave all what we had, then it gained momentum,’ adds Sunil.

Sunil says that it feels great to have a vision and reach there and then go about resetting goals.  He has been following the principle ‘Go as far as you can see and when you get there, you will see further’.  He expresses his gratitude, ‘I owe this success to my supportive family, my partners and to the teachings of Alma Mater, a training organization which has been my back bone all these years’.  His ever willing nature to explore, expand and excite his customers has been the key to this business.

Sunil who has traveled all over our country is very confident that there is no store of this kind anywhere in this sector and wishes to fill that void by Driving us Nuts all over India!