Phikaralin Wanshong (or Kong Kara as she is lovingly known), is a resident of Pohkseh, Shillong, and an entrepreneur who specializes in food processing. Her work has been widely acknowledged including by the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise which awarded her with the Best Entrepreneur Award in 2010. The award was conferred to her by the then President of India Smt. Pratibha Devi Singh Patel in New Delhi.
Kong Kara inherited her interest in food processing from her mother who was quite passionate about pickle making. Kong Kara is herself, a mother of four kids and she initially made pickles just for self-consumption. Her children loved the pickles and so did all friends and neighbours who got to have a taste. This constant positive feedback finally motivated her to officially enter the food processing business. In 1998 she took the first step by attending a two week training course organised by the Department of Food and Nutrition. Aspiring to succeed in the food processing industry, she went for further training under various departments, including training organised by the Department of Horticulture in 2005 and 2006 at Fruit Garden, Shillong.
Kong Kara’s dedication, hard work and growing technical expertise through all the training allowed her to set up her own processing unit - Kara’s Fresh Foods - just next to her house. She then received financial assistance in the form of loans which helped her expand the business. Products made by her enterprise include a large range of pickled foods - bamboo shoot, dried fish, beef, tamarind, mango, wild apple, chillies, Eleagnuslatifolia (sohshang) and various other locally available fruits. The enterprise also manufactures juice from locally available fruits such as star fruit, pineapple, Meghalaya’s Cherry (Sohiong) and many others. Kong Kara buys the raw material for pickle and juice from the local market at Iew duh and also from the weekly market at Smit, Mawryngkneng, where she can procure a variety of fruits at a reasonable price.
Over time, she also networked with farmers for direct procurement from them. Since hygiene is very important to her operations, Kong Kara is especially careful about cleaning and drying all produce before the pickling or processing. For her packaging, Kong Kara buys plastic pouches and plastic jars from Mumbai and Guwahati respectively. Roughly calculated, the enterprise operates at a 25% to 30% profit margin.
Because of her ever expanding business, Kong Kara has received many opportunities to showcase her products at exhibitions organised by the Government of Meghalaya. She has also had the privilege of showcasing her products at a national exhibition organised by the government in New Delhi. Additionally, she was sponsored under the Chief Minister’s scheme to participate in a one month bakery training programme under JM Bakery in Bangalore. As a female entrepreneur, Kong Kara has also taken up the responsibility of helping other women who faced economic hardship and want to take up entrepreneurship activities. Thus she has herself trained students from various institutions and aspiring entrepreneurs who are particularly interested in food processing. She has also been engaged for training programmes organised by other organisations, including the Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship. In fact, students from institutes such as Martin Luther Christian University and St Anthony’s College Shilllong have also done projects and internships at Kong Kara’s food processing unit. As with pickles all those years ago, Kong Kara has recently ventured enthusiastically into the bakery sector, and has even set up a shop at which to sell her baked goods. Her success in food processing has attracted online retailers such as www.giskaa.com who now sell many of her products online, a testament to her diversifying and expanding business and the popularity of her food products.
On being asked why she decided to diversify into the bakery business, Kong Kara said that market demand in the food sector was growing in Meghalaya and demand for baked goods in particular was consistently high. She also said that she faced additional challenges with selling her processed food products. For example, she could only collect the money after the products had been sold but these products were often displayed in retail outlets for two or three months. If shops could not sell the products before the product expiry date, some of it would get spoilt. Being stored in shops for long periods of time sometimes also spoilt the packaging and labels. Shop owners would return such products resulting in a loss to Kong Kara.
At present Kong Kara bakes buns, fruit buns, rum balls, bread, dough nuts, croissant, cakes, patties, pastries, lamington, biscuits, chops and many other baked goods. Per day, the baking requires about 15 kilos of flour. She starts her cooking at the bakery early in the morning and continues till about 2 in the afternoon. After this she dispatches the products to her outlet for sale. Comparing the profits from the two food enterprises, Kong Kara notes that her margins are higher at the bakery. However, she is committed to her pickling and processing unit and believes that it will become more successful over time.
In 2015, Kong Kara registered herself as a partner with Enterprise Facilitation Centre (EFC), in Mylliem village, East Khasi Hills. She is looking forward to enhancing her skills through further specialized trainings under IBDLP and is also keen to help other entrepreneurs who want to start or scale their businesses.