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 acknowledged 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 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 passionate about pickle making. Kong Kara is a mother of four kids and initially, she made pickles which were enough for just her household. Her children loved the pickles and so did all her friends and neighbours. 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 organized 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 organized 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 enabled her to set up her own processing unit - Kara’s Fresh Foods – which is located right 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, sohshang (eleagnuslatifolia) and various other locally available fruits. The enterprise also manufactures juice from locally available fruits such as carambola, pineapple, cherry (Sohiong) and many others. Kong Kara buys the raw material for pickling and fruits for juicing from the local market at Iew duh and also from the weekly market at Smit and Mawryngkneng, where she can procure a variety of fruits at a reasonable price. Over time, she also networked with farmers for direct procurement of a wide range of produce. Hygiene is very important in her operations and Kong Kara is especially careful about cleaning and drying all produce before the pickling or processing. For 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, she has received many opportunities to showcase her products at exhibitions organized by the Government of Meghalaya. She has also had the privilege of showcasing her products at national exhibitions in New Delhi. Additionally, she was sponsored under a scheme by the Chief Minister 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 face economic hardships and she also wants to take up other entrepreneurship activities. She has herself trained students from various institutions and aspiring entrepreneurs who are particularly interested in food processing. She has engaged in training programmes organized by the Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship. In fact, students from institutes such as Martin Luther Christian University and St Anthony’s College Shillong have also done projects and internships at Kong Kara’s food processing unit.
Kong Kara has recently ventured into the bakery sector, and has even set up a shop where she sells 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- which is a testament to her diversifying and expanding business and the popularity of her food products.
On being asked why she decided to plunge into the bakery business, Kong Kara said, “The market demand in the food sector is growing in Meghalaya and the demand for baked goods in particular is consistently high.” She adds, “ I have faced many challenges while selling processed food products and there was a time when I 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 and if shops could not sell the products before the product expiry date, some of it would get spoilt.” With her products being stored in shops for long periods of time, sometimes the packaging and labels would be damaged. Shop owners would return such products which resulted in losses to Kong Kara.
Currently Kong Kara bakes buns, fruit buns, rum balls, bread, doughnuts, croissant, cakes, patties, pastries, lamingtons, biscuits, chops and many other baked goods. Usually, baking requires approximately 15 kilos of flour. She starts baking early in the morning and continues up till 2 in the afternoon. After which she sends the products to her retail outlet.
Comparing the profits from the two food enterprises, Kong Kara has noted that her margins are much higher from 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 the 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.