IT pro-turned-chocolate maker provides jobs for rural women

The transition from a software engineer to a chocolate business entrepreneur was quite smooth and easy for Swati Kallugundi. She has not only reaped huge benefits from her Anuttama company, but also has generated employment for rural women.

Puttur:The stature and financial gain an IT job guarantees are hard to let go of. Not many choose the less-trodden path of quitting a well paid job to follow one's passion. However, the transition from a software engineer to a chocolate business entrepreneur was quite smooth and easy for Swati Kallugundi from Dakshina Kannada. She has not only reaped huge benefits from her Anuttama company, but also has generated employment for rural women.

Swati's chocolates are in high demand and currently, the firm produces 800 chocolate bars a month. There are 14 varieties of chocolates available at her firm. The chocolate with its mouth-watering taste never failed to lure anyone who tasted it once. Made with jaggery, sans chemicals, it woos chocolate lovers.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and e-commerce site Amazon are her resort for the sale. Swati Kallegundi said "I started marketing through Instagram, Amazon and Facebook. Later, we started a website for this purpose only."

The idea of starting a chocolate manufacturing firm spurted as she glanced upon cocoa tree. She fetched details on the procedure of getting a license, technology required, the process of making chocolate and way to ensure quality production. She also did extensive research on the production online without leaving bits and pieces of information. Her husband, a mechanical engineer by profession, helped her in setting up the machinery. He joined her in getting trained in chocolate making professionally.

We grow cocoa as inter-crop in our agricultural land. Due to market closure during the pandemic, we thought of coming up with something of our own. Later, we planned to make chocolate. So now we are successful, said Balasubrahamanya, Swati's husband. Swati now instigates nearby farmers to grow cocoa so that it will help both of them.