Meet the 79-Year-Old Woman Entrepreneur Who is Responsible for the Biryani You Eat on Flights
79-year-old Radha Daga is the founder of Triguni Eze Eats, a ready to eat food company that provided food for flights
If you are eating a biryani on a flight, it is thanks to this 79-year-old woman in Chennai. Radha Daga had founded the ready to eat food company Triguni Eze Eats, out of a pure passion for food and to provide employment for women.
Radha Daga does not like to consider her an entrepreneur. She says her company is not targeted at profits. Triguni Eze Eats was formed out of an idea she got when she first saw ready to eat pasta. She considered the possibility of ready to eat Indian food items and began experimenting with them. The ready to eat Idli was a failure, however, the ready to eat lemon rice and biryani were huge successes.
Age was never a restriction to her. She started her first company, a textile exports company in 1987 when she was in her mid-40s. The company offered a job for many underprivileged women as well. Radha Daga takes pride that not one faulty garment ever came from her factory.
By 2009, Radha was determined to get into the food business. And thus formed Triguni Eze Eats. After the ready to eat lemon rice and Biryani, soon ready to eat upma and tamarind rice followed.
“The food is cooked the way normal food is prepared, and then it goes through a process [for dehydration and preservation] that I can’t disclose,” Radha said once in an interview. All you need to do is add hot water to the food and in eight minutes, delicious food is ready for you.
Around that time is when IndiGo airlines came across her products and sprouted an interest in offering them in their flights. They just needed a bit of repackaging for the convenience of the cabin crew.
Triguni Eze Eats produces their products as per orders, as they are particular about shelf life. “We have the capacity to pack 16,000 to 18,000 tubs a day. Before the first lockdown we were dispatching 13,000 tubs a day between the airline and the domestic market,” Radha says. Upma, rajma chawal, dal chawal, and biryani are the hot favourites. Upma and biryani are produced every day.
As the pandemic hit, Radha’s business was affected. But as the travel restrictions relaxed, the airline business picked up. Radha is now concentrating on Train catering as well.
-Staff Reporter
