Mansooruddin Faridi/New Delhi

P C Mustafa, son of a farm labourer in Keral,a who once failed in the sixth grade and started working in the fields with his father, is today a proud owner of a 100 million company and an inspiration for others,

It was due to pressure from his school teachers that Mustafa had resumed his studies.

When he handed over Rs 14,000 – his first salary from job in Dubai – his father was emotional. He told him he had never seen such money all his life. He father had no idea that his son is destined to do better in life and it’s just a small beginning.

Mustafa soon returned to India and started his business that has grown into a company that is since known for its brand 'ID Fresh' packaged food.

P C Mustafa shows his brand product

Mustafa says that he saw many ups and downs in his business yet never gave up or let negative thoughts to prevail. “I never thought that this was not possible; was always confident that everything is possible,” he said.

Mustafa was born in a village called Chenawald near Kalpata in Kerala. The village had a primary school; no electricity and no roads. Every day he walked at least four kilometers to high school. Many children dropped out of primary school for this reason.” My father Ahmed dropped out of school after fourth grade and started working on a coffee farm and my mother Fatima never went to school,” Mustafa recalls.

"I was not interested in school," he says. Every day after school and on weekends I preferred to help my father. Mustafa with his parents

Although his grades in all subjects were lower than average for the rest of the class, he always excelled in mathematics.

Having given up the school after failing in sixth grade, he had reconciled to his fate as a farm hand with no wages. However, Mathew, his school teacher who had probably seen a spark in him come into his life as an angel at this stage.

According to Mustafa, "Teacher Matthew did not agree to expel me from school, so he talked to my father to give me another chance. When I came back to school, I had to re-study with young children while all my friends were in the upper class and it was so humiliating for me that I tried to be more active in the class.

“Matthew Sir's help worked and I became the first seventh grader to surprise all the teachers. After that, I never went back and I was the first student until the tenth grade. In those days I had only one dream, to become a maths teacher like Mr. Matthew.”

Mustafa with Bill Gates

Mathew paid for his admission fee in college and Mustafa completed his education to get a job.

With his salary, he paid the loan of Rs. 200,000 that his father had taken to meet the ends.

Mustafa never left the village until the tenth grade and it was in his pre-university course that he visited Kolkata.

His father’s friend helped him to continue his education as he arranged for free living and meals at the college charity.

Mustafa's college had four hostels and free meals were provided in another hostel. At that time, other students used to down at him and it hurt him. Mustafa said it was not a good experience, but he had to endure all to continue his studies.

Mustafa said that since he had no good grasp of English, he found college studies difficult. A friend came to his rescue; he would translated each note for him.

Delivering a lecture

Looking back Mustafa says three factors were responsible for his success: Mathematics, hard work and Faith in Almighty

He studied computers and with the help of a scholarship, he managed to complete his studies.

Mustafa had never dreamed of becoming a businessman; he wanted to be a famous engineer. After his  graduation in 1995, he was hired by the Manhattan American Indian Entrepreneurship Association. After working for a few days in Bangalore, he received a job offer from Motorola. His job took him to Ireland.

 Life in Ireland was beautiful and yet difficult. Mustafa missed the food and there was no Indian restaurant around. After Ireland, he moved to Dubai for his next job.

Mustafa advertising his products

Receiving a salary of several thousand dollars in 1996 was very important to him. He paid off his debt first. The first thing he did was send Dirham 2,000 to his father. "I heard my father cry when he took the money," says Mustafa.” Dad paid off all his debts, married my sister. Her two sisters also continued their education. She was married in 2000. He soon built a house for his family in the village. Those who saw him as a child did not believe the changed circumstance of his life.”

"After living in Dubai for many years in 2003, I decided to return to India for three reasons. First, I wanted to go back and spend more time with my family," Mustafa said. I wanted to continue my education and get a degree in economics, and the third reason was that I felt I had to bring something back into my community. “ There is a need to create employment opportunities for the smart youth of our village.”

Mustafa left the high-paying job and he admits it was the hardest decision of his life.’ My father was scared and my wife's family was upset, but one person fully supported me and that was my cousin Nasir. Nasir was running a shop in Bangalore. He told me to listen to my inner voice.”

“In 2008 we added  65,000 dirham to our capital, bought a 2,500-meter factory and imported five industrial shredders from the United States. Now the number of our products had increased but we never sacrificed quality for quantity. In 2012, we expanded our customer base to Chennai, Mangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad. So we set up factory branches in different cities.” Mustafa recalls of his journey as an enterpreneur.

His operation began in 2013 in Dubai. At this point, the demand for Adele Dosa had suddenly increased. The big breakthrough came in 2014 when ID Fresh Foods secured an investment from Halloween Venture Partners.

In the first phase he got an investment of Rs. 35 crore. After that, he got great success when he got investment from Azeem Premji Group and it made ID Fresh a hundred million dollar company.

Earlier, 5,000 kg of rice to 15,000 kg of adli was produced on ID fresh food and today the company is selling four times more mixture in hundreds of food stores and metro cities.

Mustafa is known as the king of breakfast in the country, with an annual turnover of about Rs 100 crore in 2015-2016. In 2017-10, it increased to Rs. 182 crore. ID Fresh Food ended FY21 with revenue of Rs. 294 crore.

The company is now worth Rs 2,000 crore. The business tycoon regrets that his childhood teachers are not alive to see his success. When I returned home, I found out that he had died. My heart was broken and I wished I could see what a laborer got because of them!

(This article was prepared with the help of Internet Information and ID Fresh Food website.)