From table cleaner to Rs 1,700-crore food business: How K S Thirupathi Raja built Adyar Ananda Bhavan (A2B)

Long before Adyar Ananda Bhavan became a recognised name in the food business, K S Thirupathi Raja was learning the trade from the ground up. He started out as a table cleaner before moving on to sweet-making, working in Chennai and Mumbai to gain experience. He eventually returned to Rajapalayam, where he took up farming on his ancestral land. The farming business initially did well, encouraging him to lease adjoining agricultural land with borrowed money. However, a devastating dust storm destroyed the farmlands, wiping out the crops and leaving him with huge debt. Rather than continue with farming, Raja decided to return to his earlier trade.

In 1960, he opened Guru Sweets, a small sweet shop in Rajapalayam. It marked his first step towards building a business in the food industry, although the road to establishing a larger brand would take several more years. In the mid-1970s, Raja moved to Bengaluru with his family and started Srinivasa Sweets. His wife and two sons, K T Venkatesan and K T Srinivasa Raja, supported him in running the business. According to the company's account of its history, the sons even postponed their education to help manage the shop. The family operated the business together, with Raja handling sweet-making, his wife assisting him and his sons taking care of different responsibilities at the shop.