KEEP GOING TILL YOU ACHIEVE IT- Atulit Chokhani (Founder & Director)
This is the life story of Atulit Chokhani, a guy, who got inspiration while traveling. A trip to a family-run vineyard in South Africa which was marketing stellar wines got him thinking, why can’t he do the same with tea?
That is how the idea to form a tea brand started brewing, which refined with time. A little over a year later, he successfully launched The Tea Shelf, to further explore his love for tea.
Atulit Chokhani was born into a family of tea lovers. The Tea Shelf is his dream project which he started after completing his MBA and gathering valuable work experience under his father Mr.O.P Chokhani. Atulit Chokhani is the 6th generation tea planter. Hence, what could be a better opportunity than taking the legacy forward in one way or the other?
While the husband-wife duo of Engineer Atulit & Merchandizer Srinidhi laid the foundations of the brand. Together, they are conquering their quest of providing tea lovers worldwide with the most premium teas
P.S- A family that drinks together (tea of course) can work together!
Atulit engaged in a lot of research and surveys. He found out that there has been a change in the quality tea-drinking segment, where the consumers are more aware of the variety of teas, their source, and flavor options to experiment with. This is the section of consumers that falls under his target audience, and they look forward to growing with them.
The major challenge is delivering fresh tea to consumers. Since tea is a perishable product (shelf life of about 12 months or more depending on how you store it), teas needed to source needed to be careful for a customer to drink a cup of fresh tea. This challenge was overcome by storing teas in the correct dehumidified environment and having trained staff to know how to handle tea.
All teas are vacuum-packed to keep them fresh and fragrant. The next challenge that was faced was pricing. A consumer tends to compare the prices to the price of pre-packaged teas! But we would like the quality of tea to speak for itself. Also, to be able to keep the inventory rotating and not sell old-season teas as they freshen there would have another challenge. More than a challenge it is the high inventory costs and low returns on it.
Every positive review and feedback and repeat customer is of great encouragement to the team!
It is small achievements like this that keep the workforce motivated to excel and offer better products and services. It has been a whirlwind of a learning experience, with its highs and lows. Every new customer reached out to just strengthen the belief in this venture and encourage Atulit and the clan to keep going.
There will be challenges in every aspect, but one needs to innovate daily and needs come on top of it. We would like to end this article by Mr. Atulit Mantra“success is not rocket science’’
The Tea Shelf is located in Kolkata & caters the customers worldwide.
Social Presence:
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/theteashelf/
Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/TheTeaShelf
Linkedin- https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-tea-shelf/
