When Muthuswamy Mudaliar, father of the present Chairman of
Nilgiris store on
Brigade Road, M Chenniappan opened the outlet in 1939 in a
small way, the daily business was just Rs 10. Today, it has grown
into a Rs 80 crore worth chain of giant outlets in South India and
is planning to spread its wings to northern states in India and abroad
as well.
There is an interesting saga behind the Nilgiris success. The
story of the Nilgiri Dairy Farm began in a village near Coonoor
in the Nilgiris with a young man, Muthuswamy Mudaliar, who
trod the mountain paths up and down every day as a postman in the
last decade of the 19th century. Muthuswamy Mudaliar was the
son of a poor weaver of Morattupalyam near Tirupur in Coimbatore district.
He left home as a teenager in search of a job and success. Finally,
he got the job of a postman in Coonoor. His job helped him notice
that people in Coonoor and Wellington got their dairy supplies mostly
from far off Australia and Gujarat. This churned the entrepreneur
in him into action.
Aided by his valuable contacts and advice from some of the local people,
Muthuswamy opened a small dairy farm at Vannarpet, a hamlet between
Coonoor and Wellington. The now gigantic Nilgiri Dairy Farm thus took
its modest birth in 1905.
Slowly, he installed cream separators and developed the dairy farm
at Coonoor. During the first World War, Muthuswamy was the leading
supplier of butter and cream to the then Imperial Dairy Farm at Wellington
and Bangalore. In 1923, young Muthuswamy shifted his business permanently
to Ootacamund. In the early years he used to walk from Wellington
to Ooty daily, accompanied by his wife and son. The initial hurdles
only strengthened his determination to build the dairy market. In
1935, he introduced a quality butter under a brand called "Crown"
and successfully faced the competition with the then popular Australian
butter suppliers. Muthuswamy always pinned his faith in the quality
of dairy products.
Muthuswamy cornered glory in the field of consumer service
when Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru, during his visit to Ooty in 1948-49, spoke in
eloquent terms of the quality of Nilgiri Dairy Products. The
year 1939 is a landmark in the history of Nilgiris when
its branch was opened on Brigade Road in Bangalore.
"Then we started business here in a small way with a mere Rs 10 a
day," Chenniappan told bangalorebest.com at his
outlet on Brigade Road. He personally supervises the operations at
the city's number one super market. A vast range (about 7,000 in number)
of quality products in categories like dairy, bakery, provisions are
available here. Chenniappan's younger brothers and sons, who have
studied dairy sciences abroad in Holland and the USA, have further
developed the Nilgiris company in a big way. Nilgiris is
planning to expand its business to a Rs 500 crore company in the next
five years.
Address:
Nilgiris
#171, Super Market,
Brigade Road,
Bangalore.
Phone: 558 2283
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4:45:19 PM 
