Mahbuba Islam, Dhaka
R Food products
374 Views

I grew up in Dhaka but had to move to Chittagong for my husband’s job. After my marriage, I grew an interest in cooking. I learned cooking and wanted to teach others. When my first child was in class six, I had spare time and wanted to utilize my cooking skills. Hence, I thought of taking cooking classes. I was fully focused on planning it and spread leaflets and was almost about to start my classes. Then suddenly, I learned that I was expecting my second baby. I had to leave the plan, but my dream to build a career in this field never left.

A few years passed by. I enrolled my second child in an English medium school. I noticed there was an underdeveloped canteen in the school. I talked to the principal and he told me that many people tried to run the canteen but failed. They could not last more than six months. I asked him whether I could give it a try. He put his trust in me and allowed me to restart the canteen. 

There were around 400-500 students in the school. I started the canteen and it was going smoothly. Then one of my female assistants advised me to sell frozen food items to the super shops. There was a Meena Bazaar outlet opening in front of my house. I took her good advice and went to Meenabazar with my proposal. I talked to the manager and he helped me with necessary information relating to paperwork. I followed the process and launched my food business. Both of my children’s initials are R, hence, I named my business “R Food products”.

I started selling frozen food items to Meena Bazaar including shingara, shomucha, rolls and savoury items alike. Slowly, I started supplying my food to other super shops. Simultaneously, I used to run two school canteens and another one in a private university named East Delta University. I have been running my business for almost fifteen years now. My husband has always been supportive of my ventures and helped me throughout the process. 

No venture is built without struggles. However, life went comparatively easy on me at my initiation phase. Before marriage, I barely went to the kitchen. But once I started to learn it I realized how good I was. At that time there were no YouTube channels to learn cooking. The only option available was to take physical classes. I had to take admission in cooking schools to nourish my merit. It was difficult. I was initially planning to start a fast food business but destiny has brought me here. 

I had a good rapport with the people from the Meena Bazaar outlet and through them, I got connected with LightCastle Partners a few years ago. I participated in their training program where I learned about different business management skills. It was a nice experience. Since I was living in Chittagong temporarily, I was not fully committed to my business there. I was waiting to return to Dhaka so that I can permanently build my ventures here.

Two years ago we moved to Dhaka and I was planning to start everything from scratch. I had started investing but then the pandemic happened. I had to pay my employees the entire time. Everything got delayed and I have lost 8-10 lacs of our money. It was a huge loss for me but I am not giving up so easily. As lockdown restrictions have been loosened, I will take one step at a time and grow my business again.

Like all the other entrepreneurs out there, I too dream of serving as many people as I can with my food products. Besides contacting the super shops, I have been trying to rent a shop and talked to some people. I am determined to make this work at any cost. Once the rental fees and other conditions match, I will put my heart and soul into my business with hopes to make it big one day.