It was the year 1929 when Silk merchant Mohanlal Dayal bought an old closed factory in the Vile Parle area of Mumbai. He set out to make it a confectionery. Actually, Mohanlal was influenced by the Swadeshi movement.
A few years ago he went to Germany and learned the art of making confectionery. In 1929, he returned to India with a confectionary-making machine, which he bought in Germany for 60 thousand rupees.
Work started in the factory with 12 people. All of them were members of Mohanlal's own family who became engineers, managers and confectionery makers.
It is said that the owners of the company were so busy with their work that they did not even name the company. Hence, over time, India's first confectionery brand was named after its place – Parle.
Parle started making biscuits in 1939, 10 years after the factory started. Till that time, the biscuits found in India were imported from outside, so it was expensive. Only the rich were able to buy it. The market was dominated by British brands such as United Biscuits, Huntly & Palmers, Britannia and Glaxo.
Parle launched its biscuits at a cheaper price for the general public. Made in India, for the people of India, the biscuits available to every Indian soon became popular among the general public. The Parle Biscuits were also in great demand in the British-Indian Army during the Second World War.
India gained independence in 1947. Pakistan was partitioned that year and suddenly there was a shortage of wheat in the country. Parle had to stop the production of his gluco biscuits as wheat was the main source of this.
To overcome this crisis, Parle started making biscuits made of barley. In an advertisement, the company appealed to its consumer, bowing to the freedom fighters, to use a biscuit made of barley until the wheat supply was normal.
By the 1960s, several other brands also launched glucose biscuits. This led to consumer confusion and this had an impact on the sale of Parle Biscuits.
The company decided to make new packaging. Now Parle started coming wrapped in a yellow wax paper. Above it was a picture of a little girl with red-coloured Parle branding. The illustration of this girl was prepared by Maganlal Daiya of Everest Brand Solutions.
The new branding may have attracted children and their mothers, but how Parle looked different from other glucose biscuits remains a problem. In 1982, Parle Gluco was repackaged as Parle-G.
The packing was also changed from wax paper to a lower priced print plastic cover. This move of the company made Parle stand apart from other fake companies.
After branding and repackaging, Parle-G created a new TV commercial. In it, a fat grandfather sings in chorus with his grandchildren – tasty, full of power, Parle-G.
In 1998, Parle-G received the brand endorser Shaktimaan, the homegrown superhero of the TV world. Parle-G's advertisements in children became very popular due to Shaktimaan.
After this, taglines like 'G Mane Genius', 'Hindustan Ki Shakti', 'Roko Mat, Toko Mat' … always kept Parle-G in the limelight. Parle-G has also focused on social messaging and nostalgia in her advertisements.
Parle kept its main product as a low-profit margin. That is, produced on a large scale and earned extremely low profits. Due to this people got it cheaper than what they expected in the market.
Parle-G Biscuit did not put much emphasis on increasing the price by understanding the thinking of the public but reduced the weight of the packet to preserve its profits.
In order to compete with the market, Parle also made other biscuits like Crack Jack, 20-20 in addition to his main product. Candy like Mango Bite, Parle Melody launched in the market.
Today Parle-G has more than 130 factories across the country and about 5 million retail stores. Every month Parle-G produces over 100 crore packets of biscuits. Parle products are exported to more than 21 countries.
