Moni Varma, always dreamt of becoming a millionaire, but never imagined his fortune would be built on rice. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Varma described how he 'got distracted' by rice, while planning to set up a trading company in Ealing, to buy and sell steel.
“I did not want to sell rice- I wanted to work in the steel industry...” Born in India (where his parents were on holiday), the youngest of 8 children, Varma grew up and lived in Nyasaland, which became Malawi. 33 years old Varma came to Britain in 1982. His father was an electrical engineer and mother a housewife.
In his homeland he helped to run a company that made steel products, but when a relative asked him to import Basmati rice to Britain, he saw an opportunity he could not ignore.
A nation of curries, rice has become a great part of the British cuisine. Duties on milled rice imported in Europe were £400 a tonne, while for unmilled brown rice they were £200. Varma thought there were profits to be made by importing unrefined rice and milling it himself.
And his hunch was proved right. Launched in 1987, today Veetee Rice has a sales of £72mn and profits top £3mn. Varma's fortune is esimated at £215mn and ranked 450th on The Sunday Times Richlist. The company mills and packs rice for household names such as M&S and Tesco. All the own-brand rice on the shelves of Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrison's also comes from Vetee.
Varma left school in 1968. He planned to study law, but was offered a job as a salesman for Gestetner, the copying machine maker. The money was good, so his academic aspirations was soon forgotten. After 11 months Varma left the job, set up a business with a friend to sell barbed wire. They expanded it into a steel supplier before Hastings Banda (Malawi's then President) bought over the company in 1980. He then moved to Britain with his wife.
“I don't regret my decision,” he said speaking about his decision to take up rice over steel. “Both industries are equally problematic. Every commodity has its cycle- it goes up and down.”
Varma also runs Veetee foods a sister company starte in 2005, which sells rice dishes ready to heat and eat, and had a revenue of £18mn in 2014.
Undaunted by pitching to big companies, today his business has two factories in India. 66 years old Varma lives with his wife between two homes, one in Middlesex and other in Mayfair. They have two children- Priya, 32 and Rajiv, 30, who works at Vetee as the deputy chairman.
What is Moni Varma's future ambition? He plans for a £25mn factory in North Carolina to help Vetee win more business from American supermarket chains. It is already supplying to 7500 outlets, including Walmart, which brings in £6mn of sales.
Whether his bold ambitions for a new site will pay off or not he does not know for sure. If it does, he could be prepared to accept one of the many offers he has. “I will sell the companby at son stage, may be when I have the factory up and running.” It seems he will have no problems securing the funds for his future endeavours. He is also sure that the company revenue will remain the same in the next financial year.
Signing off with an advise for budding entrepreneurs, a role-model Varma emphasised there is no smooth sailing in a business.
“If you want to start your own venture, go right ahead. You will prevail if you use your common sense and persevere. There's always a risk in everything you do.”
