Adyar Anand Bhavan Chennai

With its branches spread across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry and Delhi, Adyar Ananda Bhavan, popularly known as AAB or A2B, is one of South India’s leading sweets and savouries manufacturers. The chain includes about 25 A2B vegetarian restaurants which also serve low calorie, low fat foods apart from North Indian and Chinese fare. The restaurants are accommodated within the premises of the sweet shops, and some also house banquet halls. AAB’s roots can be traced to 1975, when Thirupathi Raja started a sweet shop Ananda Bhavan in Bangalore. In 1978, the second shop Sri Ananda Bhavan was inaugurated in North Chennai. The names ‘Ananda Bhavan’ and ‘Sri Ananda Bhavan’ evolved to today’s ‘Adyar Ananda Bhavan’ with the opening of the third shop in Adyar, Chennai in 1988.

 

From a humble four member team, AAB has grown to over 3000 employees. Today the sweets menu has over 450 varieties which not only showcase the art of sweet making, but also enhance the experience of eating. Special sweets for diabetic patients ensure no one is left behind. In 2003, it set off on a mission to retrieve the nearly forgotten traditional items such as appam, poli and kolukattai.

 

Behind AAB’s family-friendly exterior is a well oiled, constantly expanding machine. The company has regularly added layers to its business and now has a presence in the corporate catering services space, signing contracts with the city’s top BPOs. It earned repute as the caterer for the marriage of the former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s son, where AAB even laid out lavish meals on trains for guests.

 

 

To make their products authentic, specialised sweet makers are hired from various places and trained to suit the brand’s unique flavour. AAB adds a new sweet to the menu list every month and carefully adapts existing menus to the tastes and requirements of customers.

The company’s expertise is apparent in its tie-up with the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam, the administrative body of the Tirumala and Tirupati temples, to produce the ladoos that are offered to devotees. The ‘Srinivasa Kalyanam’ organised by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam at Mumbai saw AAB supplying over 500000 ladoos, similar to the ones supplied by the Devasthanam. Its success may also be attributed to its emphasis on quality and customer service.     Their manufacturing unit at Ambattur enforces strict checks on quality throughout the supply and production chain. Venkatesan points out that creating quality products requires quality raw material, and special attention is paid to the use of pure ghee and double refined oil.  Eager as it is to forge ahead, the company remains true to its basics; it proudly proclaims that its forte will always be sweets. Its R&D team at Ambattur is already working on nutritious sweets for the elderly. Plans are on to export AAB’s signature sweets and open more outlets in Chennai.

 

 

 

 

 

Promoters Venkatesan and Srinivasa Raja work towards preserving their unique tradition, while constantly reinventing their menu to meet the evolving tastes of the new generation. AAB is a member of the Snack Food Association and Srinivasa Raja is among the established administrators in the food industry. Raja is the president of The Chennai Hotel Association and the vice president of Tamil Nadu Hotel Association. Raja’s entrepreneurship has notched up a string of accolades; the Best Entrepreneur award from Bharath University, the Udyog Rattan Award in 2007 and the award for Excellence in Productivity, Quality Innovation and Management by the Institute of Economic Studies.