Old Madras Baking Company started with one simple idea: to make fresh, preservative-free breads accessible daily to consumers. No fuss, no nonsense, just fresh, honest baking.
The first Old Madras Baking Company outlet opened in TTK Road, Chennai, in 2014 to an unexpectedly great response, Sweta Garapati, the co-founder, says. “At the time, we were one of the very first places doing all-natural, preservative-free bread that was baked fresh every day. We realised there was a good market for freshly baked goods, and we wanted to expand into more neighbourhoods to be directly accessible to more consumers. As for the name, we wanted to do a modern take on local bakeries, which are very popular in cities like Chennai and Bangalore. We wanted to evoke a sense of nostalgia in the current scenario.”
The Old Madras Baking Company team aimed to work on the recipes in a way that identified with the modern palate—clean, simple, ingredient-forward recipes. No margarine, only butter. They were gunning for quality, not quantity. They saw, based on market research, that times had changed. People were more aware of the ingredients going into their food, and the mindset surrounding these types of bakeries had gone from an everyday thing to rare occasions. It all started with an idea.
Sweta Garapati, the co-founder of Old Madras Baking Company
Sweta had studied and worked in the US and was considering coming back to India when her father thought of the bakery idea. “He said we should try setting up one branch and see how it does. Seeing how amazing the response was, we started thinking about scale and how to grow this business further. It started with a spark, and now it’s taken up over a decade of my life,” she laughs.
They started in a 600-square-foot space, where both baking and selling were done out of the store. Now, they have 15 outlets across Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad with over 150 team members. Recently, they moved into a 13,000-square-foot centralised kitchen in Chennai, where all the R&D, recipe testing, and baking are done. “We have head chefs and consultants as well, who bring us innovative ideas and help us achieve global standards of baking in India. We like involving our customers in the process too. We test a small batch in our outlets, record customer responses, and work on the item further before officially launching it. Some of our bestsellers were created like that! A family friend from Kodaikanal asked us to try making a coconut-filled bun because he was craving it. We sent it to him, he loved it, and we eventually launched it in our bakeries,” Sweta smiles.
They work with consultants from Australia to perfect their sourdough, which is very authentic and made with the starter. It has no yeast, which is how sourdough should be, making the bakery stand out among other establishments and their breads. “We use a very artisanal method of baking called ‘sponge and dough’, which is a longer baking process using fermentation, bringing out the bread flavours naturally. Even though we bake on a commercial scale, we still stick to our values and strike a balance between automation and handmade techniques,” Sweta explains.
As a young woman, she navigated the Indian world of business with no background whatsoever. When asked about where she sees Old Madras Baking Company in the future, she says, “I hope to see us experimenting with more products and being present in more homes. In today’s world, fresh food is a luxury, and we would like to keep developing products with our all-natural, preservative-free formulations. We’d love to expand into a range of biscuits and cookies in an honest, authentic way. We want to open more outlets in more cities and get closer to more consumers.”
The Old Madras Baking Company storefront
Every business owner goes through a journey of learning lessons along the way. Sweta shares hers, “The biggest one so far has been adapting on the go. When COVID hit, and everything was turned upside down, it would have been very easy for us to take shortcuts and do things differently. I, however, am very strong about sticking to my values, no matter what the circumstances are. That’s what keeps our customers with us, and that’s how we’ve been able to sustain our business for so long. I try my hardest, even with our growing team, to make sure we’re all aligned on being an honest, authentic bakery with zero additives in the products. We follow this rigidly, down to greasing our bread moulds. Even for that, we exclusively use butter. No one would notice if we switched to oil or margarine; that would bring down our costs significantly, since butter is so expensive. But that’s not how we do things in Old Madras Baking Company, I’m a stickler for following the rules,” she chuckles.
On the topic of doing things differently if given a chance to start over, Sweta says, “I wouldn’t do anything differently. I think I had to learn all the lessons that I did along the way. Yes, there were a lot of lessons, but that’s how it goes. That’s the whole idea: building and growing something that you’re so passionate about. You’re bound to face challenges, but the journey and the result have made it all worth it.”
She describes moments that made the past decade memorable, “What we’re most grateful for is our customer loyalty. We have customers who have been coming from the very beginning and have stuck with us. On Swiggy and in-store, we’re one of the outlets with the highest customer retention—about 85%! A few weeks ago, I visited our first TTK road outlet. I came across this boy, who has been a customer for many, many years. As a little kid, he used to come to the store in his school uniform and get a little treat. Back then, I was in my 20s, and I used to joke with my mom about how we used to get 20 rupees as pocket money and could never afford baked goods,” she laughs. “Now, this boy is all grown up! It was such a sweet experience, seeing him here all these years later, still buying himself a sweet treat at OMBC.”
To maintain consistency across cities and outlets, they primarily focus on the process. There are bound to be slight differences owing to the ingredients or the temperature local to that city. Even with these differences, the team is expected to follow the stringent processes that are set.
A huge challenge for the business is food wastage, since they bake fresh every single day. Sweta explains, “It’s a hard thing to crack; we need enough products on the shelves, but we don’t want too much leftover at the end of the day. We work very hard on our data metrics to figure out forecasting and projections to ensure minimal wastage. We’re doing our best to tie up with organisations and formalise this process. Since we don’t use preservatives, our shelf life is low, so the food needs to be consumed quickly. As we grow, this is becoming a liability, but we’re working on it.”
To conclude, Sweta talks about the motivation behind working for herself every day. “I think focusing on the bigger picture, and focusing on the goal of what we want OMBC to be and become. We want to find a place in a lot more customers’ hearts and create access to reach more homes.”
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