Sweet shops ramp up production to meet Diwali, Bhai Phonta demand

KOLKATA: With Kali Puja, Diwali and Bhai Phonta round the corner, sweet shops across the city are ramping up production to meet high demand for traditional items. While some shop owners are engaging more manpower to boost production, some are taking tech route to cater to the demand.
Traditional items that usually fly off the shelves during festive season include 'rasogolla', 'kamala bhog', 'pantua', 'chom chom', 'rasmalai', 'sita bhog', 'mihidana', 'rabri' and 'doi'.The traders, anticipating a high demand for Bhai Phonta, are now stepping up production of traditional items and drawing up new strategies like making fusion of traditional items with dry fruits or cream to woo buyers.
"This is the first time after the pandemic-hit years that we have opted to boost our production capacity by engaging more manpower. The sales of traditional sweets have increased by 14% to 15% during Durga Puja and the demand may shoot up further for Bhai Phonta," said Dhiman Das, director of K C Das Pvt Ltd.
"We have been making traditional sweets like sandesh since the inception of our shop in 1826. The demand has gone up and we have also boosted production. We are also making special items for diabetics," said Tapan Kumar Nag of Bhim Chandra Nag on Nirmal Chunder Street.
Hindustan Sweets, set up in 1949, has already engaged more manpower to procure traditional sweets. "The soaring demand is enabling us to tide over the financial loss incurred during the pandemic," said Rajdeep Paul, managing partner of the sweet chain.
Surya Modak will be dishing out 150 types of traditional and fusion sweets, said Saibal Modak, present owner and secretary of Hooghly Mishti Union."Sweet sales have touched pre-pandemic levels. Volume of sales is going up by 10%-15% compared to last year," said Sudip Mullick, director of Balaram Mullick and Radharaman Mullick.
"Production of traditional sweets is soaring by 35% this time compared to last year," said Bikramjit Ghosh, director of Banchharam's. Mishtanna, a unit of Bengal Sweets and Bakers Pvt Ltd, is also seeing an uptick in sales this puja, said Aritra Banerjee of the shop's Mukundapur outlet.