Swaadilo: Nepali homemade chilis with a twist

Aaditya Rauniyar, 25 along with two of his friends were having a difficult time finding internships at any foreign hotels last September.
As a hospitality students, instead of doing at least two 6 months long internships, or having a job related to the hospitality field, they were stuck with desk internships.

Later, they decided to create an opportunity for themselves and came up with the idea of ‘Swaadilo’.

“We offer unique and premium condiments which are MaLa Chili Oil: a Sichuan and Guizhou inspired chili oil with a Nepalese twist, as well as a dry achar called Badaam Khursani (groundnut and chili), available in fish and veg variants'', Rauniyar says. “These are inspired from Burmese shrimp pickles called Balachuang”, he explains.

The ingredients they use for the pickles are fresh. Taking into account the day for ingredient sourcing, mise-en-place, cooking and packaging, it takes around 3-4 days for the final product to be ready and to set out into the market.

“We are highly grateful to the unwavering support of our closest friends who help us out in packaging times. There is no mechanical equipment involved and everything is done by hand”, he says.

Business for Swadilo depends on social media boosting. Daily orders range from 5-15 depending on their social media reach. However, the product is now available in a handful of marts and Daraz.

“We often direct customers to the closest mart or Daraz according to their convenience”, Rauniyar says.

Like any other business, Rauniyar and his team also suffered with business during the lockdowns. They struggled with sourcing ingredients, packaging and delivering as well. The prices of raw ingredients have been going up since last year.

“The sales after lockdown are highly promising and with the initiative of selling through Daraz, online deliveries have become much easier”, he says. “However, there are still some issues that have yet to be fixed”, he adds.

Rauniyar and his team have faced lots of ups and downs after stepping into the world of entrepreneurship. “We did not know what to expect. There were moments of hardships, some disagreements within us three partners”, he says. “Most of these issues are within our control now” he adds.

Swaadilo struggled to fulfill their first pre-order last year. But they have come a long way and are celebrating their first-year anniversary this October.

All of their products are equally popular and each has their own regular customer base.

“All of our products are equally popular and each has their own regular customer base. Our target audience is from the ages 16 to 60, especially those who like spicy and East Asian Food”, he says.

After almost a year of home based operations, Rauniyar and the team have rented an office with a large kitchen space for Swaadilo. With the completion of construction, they intend to increase production and start exporting the Nepal-made product to foreign countries too.

Swaadilo is available in Daraz, and marts like Blueberry Mart (Tokha), Lumbini Mart (Sankhamul) and 7 Sisters Mart (Boudha). It will soon be available in S-Mart (Gaighat) as well.

“We also have been exporting our products to Australia since the last few months, with a help of an exporter”, he says.