Vidya Raja
A few years ago, Yachika Chopra was a rather busy flight attendant with an airline. Focused on her career, she says that she never gave much thought to anything else until April 2020 when the lockdown was announced and the world came to a standstill.
At home in Goa, without a job, Yachika stumbled upon her mother Poonam Chopra’s little black book filled with recipes. That turned out to be a treasure trove for her.
Speaking to The Better India, she says, “Building a brand that sold artisanal pickles was a dream that my mother had nurtured. However, she never mustered the courage to see this plan through. Instead in the little black book, she made meticulous notes on the resources that would be needed to start a business.”
Unfortunately, Yachika lost her mother in 2020.
“Circa was founded in April 2021 as a tribute to mom,” says Yachika. “Never did I imagine myself being immersed in oil and spices the way I am now,” she adds.
Having started with an initial investment of about Rs 20,000 Circa today fulfils between 700 to 900 orders each month.
While people were making Dalgona coffee and experimenting with making sourdough bread, Yachika and her husband, Ray Vaz decided to do some home cleaning. “It was during this time that I found mom’s diary filled with recipes. In fact, not just the recipe but she had also made notes of the health benefits of each of the ingredients that she used.”
On the insistence of her husband, she decided to make a small batch of the sweet and sour green chilli pickle, to begin with. “I remember telling him that pickles were usually grandmother’s domain and I didn’t see myself as someone who could make pickles. It requires a lot of work and I wasn’t sure I was cut out for it,” she says.
The first batch that was made was distributed amongst friends and family. Almost all of them came back asking for more. “Even then I did not see myself doing it. I told people how it took me the entire day to make one batch and I wasn’t ready for all that work again. But they kept insisting and I made it again. This time I was brave enough to attempt two flavours (sweet and sour chilli and carrot cauliflower),” she adds.
She recalls how the smell while making the first batch transported her back to her childhood. Yachika describes her mom as someone who seemed like she had 20 hands when in the kitchen
The second batch was also distributed at lightning speed. Around this time a community exhibition came up and Yachika took up a stall there. “The process of sourcing sustainable packaging for the pickles, getting the labels made and of course, the pickles making itself was surprisingly fun. What boosted my confidence further was being able to sell all 60 jars by 10 am that morning,” she says.
Circa, is a wordplay on ‘sirka’ a Hindi word which means vinegar. Yachika says that the inspiration to name the brand Circa came from the natural vinegar that is used to make the pickles. With no preservatives used the pickle enjoys a shelf-life of anywhere between 10 to 12 months. Each batch is handmade, and 100 per cent vegetarian.
The time taken to make each pickle varies. She explains, “The lemon pickle takes 65 days to mature, which means I can bottle it only once that time lapses. The green chilli is made with a particular variety and to source that is a laborious task. The other pickles require a minimum of three days for the masala to be cooked and ready and thereafter a certain period to mature, which ranges from 65 to 15 days.”
What makes the pickles taste different are the small tweaks that she has seen her mother incorporate. She says, “We do not use the regular detergent to wash the utensils that we make the pickles in. Instead, we use all-natural cleaning products. Even the amount of salt I add is moderate.”
Sometime in September 2020, Yachika recalls she got a call from the airline to resume work but seeing how much she had started enjoying building Circa, she chose to give that up and continue as an entrepreneur. “By then I started seeing good potential in building the brand and that was such an exciting proposition for me. Perhaps this was a latent talent that I never tapped into,” she says with a laugh.
“The plan is to eventually build an all-woman team to help scale this company,” she says.
(Edited by Yoshita Rao)