When most teenagers were attending online classes during Covid-19, Udaipur's Digvijay Singh was busy learning how to make chocolates.
He was just 16 when he started experimenting in his home kitchen. Three years later, his hobby had turned into a chocolate business that reportedly earned Rs 1 crore in lifetime revenue.
Digvijay is a self-taught chocolatier and the founder of Saraam, a bean-to-bar chocolate brand. He had no formal training in chocolate-making and initially did not even know how chocolates were made. He learned the basics through YouTube videos and started practising at home.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Digvijay was looking for something interesting to do with his free time. He was already a chocolate lover and decided to try making chocolates. His cousin Mahaveer Singh also joined him in the idea, according to Better India.
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"I had a lot of free time in hand with school being online. I wanted to invest my energy into something interesting and fun. After various tries, I found myself making chocolates at home. This was the start of my brand," Digvijay told the outlet.
Digvijay made chocolates in his mother's and aunt's kitchens and gave them to family and friends to try. He kept experimenting with recipes and ingredients until he found the right balance.
"My parents were not really aware of the plan I had and they probably looked at it as a hobby. When I received good reviews from my parents and friends, I decided I needed a business plan," he said.
Things changed after he saw how hotels and car showrooms could use chocolates as gifts for their customers. In 2021, he received his first major order of 1,000 chocolates from a car showroom owner. Around the same time, he launched his brand, Saraam.
But Digvijay did not want to make just regular chocolates. He wanted to bring some of India's lesser-known fruits into his products.
He came across an article about indigenous Indian fruits that were becoming less common and decided to experiment with them. He began researching fruits such as baer, kokum, ice apple, bael, amla and jamun to see which ones could work with chocolate.
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Saraam now makes chocolate bars using ingredients such as baer, saffron, cardamom, kokum and other Indian fruits and spices. Its baer chocolate and white chocolate with saffron became some of the brand's popular products, according to Digvijay.
The brand sources cacao from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, while the fruits are sourced from different parts of India. For example, baer is sourced from Udaipur and kokum from Kerala. Soon, Saraam reportedly sold more than two tonnes of chocolate to customers in cities including Delhi, Bengaluru, Udaipur and Jaipur.
What began as a lockdown hobby at the age of 16 eventually became a business that reportedly crossed Rs 1 crore in lifetime revenue.