Ayurveda has been an age-old practice in India and has been used as a medicine by millions of people around the world to cure various diseases. Products made from organic ingredients are popular now but their roots in India go back to the time when an Ayurveda practitioner from Kolkata started a brand called Dabur which is now one the leading multinational consumer goods company with an income of Rs 3,240 crore for 2023, according to the Times of India.
The Burman Family from West Bengal are the pioneers of Dabur. It was SK Burman, a physician, a practitioner of Ayurveda who started this brand in 1884, being one of the oldest businesses in the country. His objective was to serve people in remote villages with effective and economical treatment. Dr Burman began the work of developing natural treatments for deadly diseases such as cholera, malaria, and plague. Soon, word of his medications spread, and he became renowned as the dependable ‘Daktar,’ (Bengali for Doctor), who devised efficient remedies at an affordable price and with natural ingredients. That is how his company, Dabur, earned its name – from the Devanagri rendering of Daktar Burman.
This 139-year-old legacy brand was taken to greater heights by C.L. Burman who established Dabur’s first R&D section. Later, during a labour uprising in Kolkata, his grandson, G.C Burman, was gheraoed by his own workers. Due to the unfavourable circumstances, G.C Burman chose to shift the factory to Delhi. The business thrived in Delhi, and the company eventually established its headquarters there as Sonu Bhasin, a business historian, stated in his work “Calcutta’s loss was Delhi’s gain.”
Dr. Anand Burman, the current chairman, joined Dabur after completing his PhD and his contribution to the company has been phenomenal. The revenue of the company was Rs 20 crore when he joined. He told Forbes in an exclusive interview, “I was groomed by my uncle, the late GC Burman, and gradually learnt the ropes. By the 1990s, we had grown to more than Rs 100 crore in revenue. We realised that the company was now in a position from where it could grow exponentially. We roped in McKinsey to help devise a strategy for the future.”
The current vice-chairman Amit Burman along with Anand are members of the family’s fifth generation. When they handed over control of the company to experts in 1998, they were among the first business families in India to separate ownership from management.
Dabur Foods was integrated with Dabur India in 2007. Following the intra-group rearrangement, the family entrusted Amit with a stronger position in its flagship firm, naming him Vice Chairman of Dabur India. After serving on the board for well over a decade, he was promoted to Chairman in 2019. Burman has been important in the family’s successful development into the restaurant chain sector, in addition to running the Ghaziabad-based ayurvedic and packaged foods company. Amit Burman’s company, Lite Bite Foods, has been at the vanguard of the Burman family’s participation in India’s rapidly rising hotel sector.
Dabur’s portfolio of brands include Vatika hair oil, Real fruit juices and Hajmola digestive candy.
The Burman Family were the 17th richest family in India in 2022, according to Forbes with a net worth of $9.6 billion.
According to The Times Of India, Dabur India mentioned its consolidated net profit grew 5% to Rs 464 crore in the June quarter due to strong sales. In the previous fiscal year’s April-June quarter, the company generated a net profit of Rs 440 crore.
Dabur India said in a regulatory statement on Thursday that the company’s overall income increased to Rs 3,240 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal year from Rs 2,923 crore the previous year.