‘You always sell big tins’: Harsh Mariwala on the small town moment that changed Marico
Marico Chairman Harsh Mariwala shared a candid reflection on LinkedIn, recounting how a humble stay at a distributor’s home in a small town sparked a key business insight that reshaped his company’s packaging strategy, and mindset.
“When Marico was nascent, I had no choice,” Mariwala wrote. “I once lived at a distributor’s home in a small town.”
At the time, Bombay Oil Industries was still the family’s core business, and Marico was in its infancy. Determined to transition from commodity trading to a branded consumer goods company, Mariwala hit the road to understand the business from the ground up.
“There were no fancy hotels… I stayed in dusty and small guest rooms. I sat with distributors over chai and samosas,” he said, describing the gritty reality of early field visits. These interactions weren’t just logistical — they revealed consumer truths spreadsheets couldn’t.
A turning point came when a retailer told him, “You always sell big tins. When people come back to buy, they carry a few kilos. If your packet is small, they will pick your brand at convenience.”
That offhand remark led to a major shift: Marico introduced smaller SKUs, moving from bulk supplier to “grab-and-go” brand.
Mariwala used the anecdote to drive home a message to entrepreneurs: “Your real research lab isn’t spreadsheets or agencies. It’s the ground… In the musty shelves of neighbourhood stores, in conversations that feel insignificant.”
The takeaway, he emphasized, is that innovation often begins in unglamorous places — and building empathy at the shelf level can shape brand strategy more effectively than any top-down planning.
