How Bisleri came about: Remembering Jayantilal Mohanlal Chauhan

Bisleri on Wednesday celebrated Jayantilal Mohanlal Chauhan or JMC as he was fondly called, vision and journey on his birth anniversary. Company’s Chairman Ramesh Chauhan reminisced the beginnings of the Parle Group and his father's foresight and explained how JMC expanded the business from Mumbai to all corners of the country, the company shared in a LinkedIn post. Meanwhile, Vice Chairperson Jayanti Khan Chauhan highlighted how he has instilled the values of entrepreneurship and innovation in the organisation and how relevant they are even today to navigate the dynamic market landscape.

Bisleri today is a household name, but ever wondered how Parle Group-- which birthed Parle Products, Parle Agro and Parle Bisleri-- first came into being? A long family tree that starts from Mohanlal Chauhan, who had five children Maneklal, Pitamber, Narottam, Kantilal and Jayantilal, collectively ran the show and made Parle what we see today.

It all began in the early 1900’s— while India was moving towards its freedom, Mohanlal Chauhan, an ordinary man moved to Mumbai from a small village near Valsad in South Gujarat called Pardi at the age of 12 and later opened two shops (in sewing) of his own by the name of – D Mohanlal & Co and Chhiba Durlabh. At the same time, he made sure to teach his five sons every trick of the trade, and then finally introduced them into the business. Later, during World War I, the five brothers eventually decided to close down the tailoring business and move into confectionery-making— with that Parle Group was born! And as soon as the War ended, Mohanlal Chauhan decided to officially retire in 1936.

To run the company effectively; the work was divided amongst the five, keeping in mind, individual fortes. Narottam and Jayantilal handled the technological end, Pitambar took care of the financial aspect, Maneklal was the fund-raiser, and Kantilal took care of daily administration.

The business began to gradually grow and just within a decade, around 1939 during the time of World War II, Parle announced their first biscuit and then later in 1959 they also started operations for carbonated beverages as ‘Baroda Bottling Company’ which later transformed into Parle Agro. However, in 1961, Parle went for split and their soft drinks business was allotted to Mohanlal Chauhan’s son Jayantilal Chauhan, whereas, their biscuit factory was taken over by their cousins Ajay, Vijay, Sharad and Anup Chauhan.

Cut to three years later, in 1964, Jayantilal’s eldest son and the Vice President of the company – Madhukar along with their cousin Jitu passed away in a plane crash, the reigns were passed onto Ramesh Chauhan, who in 1969 also bought the mineral water company – Bisleri from Felice Bisleri of Italy at Rs. 4 lakhs.

He then started introducing soft drinks like Gold Spot, Limca, Thumbs Up, Citra, Maaza into the market, and with a network of 58 bottlers, Ramesh’s Parle had a market share of more than 80%. However, post-liberalisation companies including PepsiCo and CocaCola started renegotiating with Ramesh’s bottlers. Long story short, he then decided to exit the market by selling off everything except for Bisleri, to Coca-Cola for a sum of $40 million. At the same time, the company also went through another split— which then became Parle Products, Parle Agro & Parle Bisleri.

Led by Ramesh Chauhan, his wife Zainab Chauhan and his daughter Jayanti Chauhan, Parle Bisleri’s all the shares of Bisleri are held and owned by the family only. In 2023, Bisleri International incurred a revenue of about Rs 2,300 crore and now plans to more than double its turnover to Rs 5,000 crore by 2026. Bisleri has a 32% share of the organised packaged water market in India, which is valued at Rs 8,000 crore. While Chairman Ramesh Chauhan, at one point in 2022 spoke of selling the company to Tata Consumer Products for a reported Rs 6,000–7,000 crore, it is now foraying into neighbouring markets and firing up the non-water business.