“Being a ‘tes taster’is the right of passage in our family business,” Parag Desai would say. The executive director of the iconic Wagh Bakri tea group passed away at the age of 49. Desai was the son of Rasesh Desai, managing director of the Wagh Bakri Tea Group and had been working to grow the family business and tea brand for over 30 years. Desai led multiple departments of the company namely sales, marketing and international business. He joined the family-run company in 1995, when its value was less than Rs 100 crore. Currently, as per reports, Wagh Bakri Tea Group, has an estimated turnover of over Rs 2000 crore and distributes over 50 million kilograms of tea.
He was one of two executive directors on the company’s board and led their transformation into tea lounges and e-commerce. He launched over 70 tea lounges and tea worlds in India. Furthermore, he was active on industry platforms like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and other international organisations.
Parag Desai was a fourth-generation entrepreneur of the renowned tea conglomerate. He held an MBA from the Long Island University in New York, USA.
Wagh Bakri Group is an Indian tea conglomerate founded in 1892 by Narandas Desai. According to Forbes India, Wagh Bakri is the third-largest packaged tea company in India after Tata and Hindustan Unilever (HUL). The company is present all over India including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Western Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Chandigarh, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, and recently forayed into Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.
The Wagh Bakri brand is one of the oldest existing brands in India today. According to reports, Wagh Bakri Tea is the most trusted tea brand in the country. As per a study, Indian consumers preferred Wagh Bakri Tea over other local, regional, national, and international brands. Since its inception in 1892, the brand has been present in more than 50 countries across the globe.