Karan Bilimoria
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 13 June 2004
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the businessman Karan Bilimoria - who set up production of a beer designed to be drunk with Indian food, imported it to Britain - and is now selling it back to India. As a student at Cambridge, Karan missed Indian food and used to eat at restaurants several times a week. But he disliked the gassy lagers they served – finding he could neither eat nor drink as much as he would have liked. He decided to develop a beer that was smoother and less gassy - especially designed to be drunk with Indian food. He worked with a brewer in Mysore, India, and initially they prepared to market Panther Beer - but a last-minute stint of market research led to them changing the name to Cobra Beer. It has won a string of liquor industry awards, is sold in more than 30 countries and the company is expected to turn over more than £60 million this year.
But when Karan first started on his business career, his family were horrified. He had already qualified as a chartered accountant and had just graduated in law from Cambridge, but instead of a stable profession he started to import polo sticks, then began trading in up-market ladies' clothes. His father urged him to find a more solid career, but Karan persisted, delivering crates of Cobra Beer to Indian restaurants from the back of his battered 2CV. It took more than five years for the brand to establish itself, but it is now a familiar site not just in restaurants, but on supermarket and off-licence shelves.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Cresti Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive for rights reasons |
| 0:06.0 | We've had to shorten the music |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 2004 and the presenter was Sue Lolley |
| 0:30.0 | My cast away this week is an entrepreneur, the son of a famous Indian Army family who was given his own Gurka sword for his eighth birthday |
| 0:38.0 | He was expected to follow the family tradition and join the military or seek distinction in some other Pucker profession |
| 0:44.0 | But his abilities lay in other directions, he turned his back on the bar and went into business, becoming what the family described as an import export wallet |
| 0:52.0 | First he traded in polo sticks then he moved into bejeweled jackets |
| 0:56.0 | But it was only when he remembered that as a student in Cambridge he'd found most beer entirely unsuitable as an accompaniment to curry |
| 1:04.0 | That his successful career as a businessman was born |
| 1:08.0 | Today his cobra beer in its distinctive large bottle has become one of the fastest growing businesses in the country |
| 1:14.0 | He's been named entrepreneur of the year and his company has won numerous awards for its brilliant competitive strategy |
| 1:20.0 | He's been working on the big brewers and beating them at their own game |
| 1:24.0 | His success lies in knowing his market |
| 1:26.0 | Britain is a nation of career-holics, he says, addicted emotionally to Indian food |
| 1:32.0 | He is current bilimoria |
| 1:34.0 | So now you're a successful import export wallet current |
| 1:38.0 | Does the family is the family now on side? Do they approve of you now you're a success? |
| 1:42.0 | When I first started people asked me, did you get help from your family? |
| 1:46.0 | I said, well forget financial help, I didn't even get any emotional help from them |
| 1:50.0 | They call me an import export wallet |
| 1:52.0 | They really disapproved, I mean it's a genuine disapproval |
| 1:54.0 | I think I'd have concerned for me, actually you can't really blame them |
... |
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