Collection: South Indian snacks!
The Grand Sweets and Snacks was founded in 1982 by Sri. G. Natarajan, who started this food business at his home in a small way at Gandhi Nagar, Adyar, Chennai by capitalizing his wife Srimathi Bangaru amma’s culinary skill by dipping into her personal recipes and started making and selling the generic snacks traditionally made by the old ladies of the house – the sweet Mysore pauk, Ladoo, Athirasam as well as the crunchy & savoury ‘Thattai & Spl. Mixture’.
The high and quality taste, along with homey feel of the store made customers come daily- and they started spreading the word around creating this store into a brand which is today known worldwide for its taste and tradition.
The manner in which the shop got its name is an interesting story. At that period one of the customers commented that the sweets tasted really ‘grand’. That’s how the brand name got coined as ‘The Grand Sweets and Snacks’.
The marketing had a personalized touch: the elderly founder would hand out religious booklets on culture and traditions to the customers.
Our customers also used to get to taste the daily prasadam in leaf bowls called ‘Dhonai’. These prasadam were given soon after their morning and evening prayers to all our customers.
As the business grew, he hired more staff, mostly women, and expanded the variety of traditional Sweets & Snacks. Slowly and steadily today it has a grown into a store of global fame. The worldwide clientele was built on a strong foundation of tradition, hygiene and simple home atmosphere.
The best ingredients are sourced with no compromise on quality and prepared painstakingly by specialized staff who have decades of experience in preparing traditional sweets and savouries. They never use any Preservatives or Artificial flavouring in any of our items. Their products are prepared fresh every day & our Oils are never Re-Used.
What keeps this kitchen running like a well-oiled machine are the 50 or so master cooks who have been with the company for more than 35 years, each a specialist in his/her product. Take for example Rukmini Mami alias Poli mami & her Son. The soft-spoken septuagenarian has been making polis – Mangalore and Thengai polis at Grand Sweets and Snacks for the last 40 years. Valli Mami with her team has been preparing delicious Thattai’s for more that two decades. There are many more masters and cooks like them who have been with us for a long period: "Our Quality is a reflection of the way we take care of our employees. All permanent employees get good compensation with proper allowances, health and retirement benefits."