Successful people have a few traits in common – they’re willing to work harder than anyone else, they take a risk on an idea they believe in, they follow their gut even if everyone else is telling them they’ll never be able to make it. And, of course, they all start from very humble backgrounds. Introducing a pioneer in the stationery brand, Mr. Atul Garg, Director of Oddy and founder of Uniwraps.
Though he belonged to middle-class family background and had no major savings when he decided to support his father in his work. He left his higher studies and started supporting his father at his shop selling stationery items. But his desire to do something great and big in life decided to launch his own brand for office stationery called “Oddy” which was coined by his father which means “On-demand.”
Though the journey was not so easy, he started manufacturing stationery from a small set of secondhand machines. Fast-forward to 2001, he had a dedicated building for sales, packaging, dispatch, and billing and two years later, he bought the first factory for Oddy at Okhla Phase 2, New Delhi. There has been no looking back since then. He made several trips to Germany, France, Korea, and China and kept adding pre-branded stationery to the existing basket and expanded his distribution network across the country.
The idea was to start developing the stationery product line for masses by learning from other countries and then implementing them at home. Also, he built very good relations with prominent paper suppliers in Europe and learnt about types of paper, paper properties, and processes of papermaking.
His passion for learning & research led to the launch of another innovative product in the Indian market, which he experienced at a family picnic when the mango pickle, which they carried in aluminum foil, leaked and spoiled the rest of the food.
He did a quick research on google about aluminum foil and found that it reacts with food and can harm the human body. That moment only he decided to launch the safe food packaging paper for the market.
He travelled a lot abroad to do extensive research and was looking for the solution to pickle puzzle, which he finally got in France. The solution meant that he had to purchase 75% paper from them and the rest 25% had to be processed in India. This involved a huge potential risk, but he took a leap of faith and placed a huge order for the special paper that they offered. After several failed attempts and six months to get the right combination, the team came up with India’s First Food Wrapping paper Uniwraps that is safe and secure for human bodies. One must look into every single detail and create a product that addresses all the problems of the end-user. They went ahead and printed one side to make it look attractive and to help the user identify the side that must come in contact with the food. So, they also tailor-made a blade for cutting the paper. Today, there is a wide range of Food wrapping papers and baking papers for food products.
Accepted by the Indian market, Today Uniwraps is one of the leading and pioneer companies in the food packaging paper industry. Atul’s success mantra of learning, passion, research & producing innovative products makes him a Real paper man from India.
