PC Musthafa successfully runs a ₹3,000 crore empire that he built from scratch, using only his strong entrepreneurial skills and his penchant to uplift his family from poverty. In a recent interview, Mustafa opened up about how his family made ends meet during his childhood.
PC Musthafa, who is the CEO of iD Fresh Foods, appeared on the business-oriented podcast The Neon Show, where he talked about his poor family background. Mustafa also talked about how his father only used to earn ₹10 per day.
Growing up in a lower-middle class family in Kerala’s Wayanad, Musthafa’s father used to work as a daily wage labourer and only earned ₹10 per day working in a ginger farm. This prompted Mustafa and his siblings to do odd jobs to make ends meet.
PC Musthafa’s first financial investment
On the podcast, the CEO talked about working odd jobs like selling firewood in his village. He finally ended up saving ₹150 to make his first financial investment. “I saved every penny and bought a goat. That was the first asset in my family,” he said.
Eventually trading up, PC Musthafa sold the goat to buy a cow for his family. He recalled that the family was finally able to eat three meals a day as the milk from the cow brought in extra money.
By saving money and making small investments for the family, Mustafa eventually got into the National Institute of Technology (NIT), and took up an IT job. He ended up starting his own breakfast foods company iD Fresh Foods in 2006.
Musthafa’s entrepreneurship journey
Initially, iD Fresh Foods started out as a cloud kitchen, which supplied ready-to-eat packaged food. Later, Musthafa had the idea of supplying idli and dosa batter under his brand, being a major gamechanger for his company.
The CEO said, “We Indians don’t trust our packaged food. Anything in a package form is considered unhealthy. When we launched the product in the market, we were surprised, no one was willing to buy a package of batter. We started sending 100 packets to the market, and 90 used to come back.”
However, the sales of iD Fresh Foods went up and it became a known name in breakfast foods. Musthafa said that what set his brand apart is that he chose not to use any chemicals in his pre-made batter, leading to acceptance from middle-class households.