“Jain dry fruits” is a heritage family business, with its roots in the summer capital Srinagar of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The impeccable love for the business and a deep hunger to serve the people with high quality products has kept us enthusiastically embrace the dry fruit business for more than seven decades now. Relentless dedication and desire to excel in our job accompanied with honest policies and highly professional attitude towards both customers and growers has thereby earned us an unquestionable sublime reputation in the market. With every passing day, we keep on striving to get better and enhance our reputation and live up to our customer’s high expectations. Since trust has a huge role to play in our business, we at “Jain dry fruits” are highly committed to give the best possible personalized service and honest opinions to our customers irrespective of their requirement. Our honesty and truthfulness, mixed with the years of experience in the dry fruit industry has today made “Jain dry fruits” a prime desired destination for dry fruits enthusiasts visiting the valley.
Our journey into existence dates back to the year 1944, when late Lala Bodhraj Jain, who was a high ranked government officer during Maharaja Hari Singh’s time gave his son late Lala Narinder Nath Jain, a modest amount of rupees five hundred to buy a store at Lal Chowk in the heart of Srinagar city. Although with not much formal education, Lala Narinder Nath established “Jain Kiryana store” into a formidable mercantile destination within a couple of years. But soon during the partition of 1947, the unrest was wide spread across all parts of the valley as well. However Lala Narinder Nath had vowed to himself, that he will not let the store close and hence decided to not flee. But with growing tensions each day and rising family pressure, Lala Narinder Nath handed over the keys of the store to his nearby close Kashmiri shopkeeper and told him to ensure that the store is kept open for people, and business should keep functioning. He told him that he will be back in a couple of months from Punjab, till things calm down a bit. Hardly twenty days had gone, Lala ji was back to the land and the people he loved. Although his Kashmiri neighbor had very little idea about the dry fruit and general merchant business, he tried his best and ensured the store kept functioning. Soon Lala ji regained control and started making huge inroads in the dry fruit sector. During 50-70’s Kashmir remained by at large peaceful and an extravagant destination for shootings of many Bollywood movies. Opposite to the famous “Sant Ram Halwai”, “Jain Kiryana Store” located in kokar bazaar in the heart of Srinagar valley soon became one of the most prominent destinations for both local people and tourists from other parts of the country and abroad. Besides being major wholesalers of the valley, we shipped essential items to all districts of the Kashmir division. Be it harsh cold of the month of December, or scorching heat of the month of July, “Jain dry fruits” used to be functional for at least eighteen hours in a day with workforce, working in two shifts. Many high profile Bollywood stars have visited the store during those times. We were famous amongst our customers even during those days for our high quality Kashmiri saffron, black mushrooms, walnuts and Kashmiri almonds which had a sublime sweet taste that is very hard to forget.
Lala Narinder Nath’s son Sh. Anil Kumar Jain, was a bright student in academics and excelled in geography and mathematics. After finishing his law graduation from the University of Kashmir, and being one of the elite students amongst the whole batch it was a tuff choice for him to go for a government job or join his father’s business. Although his personal interest was to go for a job, the family suggested otherwise. Sighting most of the cousins and siblings are already on government posts, they emphasized that he should carry forward his father’s business. Soon Lala ji’s health began to deteriorate in the following years and in 1987, Lala Narinder Nath Jain passed away and the whole responsibility of the business fell on the young shoulders of Mr. Anil. While Mr. Anil got busy slowly recollecting the pieces from the broken glass, the worst was yet to come. By the end of 1989, the militancy in the Kashmir valley had started big time. And by 1993 the whole valley was reeling under shadows of guns. Daily crackdowns, continuous strikes, bomb blasts and gunfire were a part of daily life during those times. A vast majority of the minority community had left the valley. But Mr. Anil’s bravery and willpower, accompanied with the love for his inherited business ensured “Jain dry fruits” would survive this storm as well. With the support of our Kashmiri Muslim brethren, who always kept on supporting us in hard and testing times, it became much easier for us to stay and not let go of our hard earned belongings. However due to continuous unrest and disturbance, the business plummeted. From the year 1990-2005 the business survived but seized to grow. Amongst 40-45 Jain families in the valley before 1989, only 4 were left while others decided to flee. Today also we are one of the only four left permanent Jain families in the whole Kashmir subdivision, which in itself makes us unique and famous. Besides being a witty, hard working gentleman, Mr. Anil is also a great salesman with very good marketing skills. Having set great benchmarks in terms of honesty and truthfulness towards the customers, he laid the major foundation in making the business great and future ready.
Mr. Anil’s son Mr. Ankit is the third generation addition to this heritage family business. Having finished his schooling in one of the most elite schools of the valley, he got admission into one of North India’s finest engineering institutions. He completed his engineering in electronics and communication timely and immediately returned to his family business in 2012 to take the ship forward. Initially many eyebrows were raised outside and within the family as to why an electronic engineer is selling nuts, but Mr. Ankit’s mind and heart was clear as to what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do. He never crumbled under pressure and was adamant to integrate the highly physical manual work done with modernizing technology to give the business a boom in reputation as well as profits. He immediately shifted the company policy from working harder to working smarter, however the deep values of honesty and truthfulness towards our job and our customers remains the same and is deeply inculcated in the whole work force of “Jain dry fruits”. Though new problems kept on coming. In the devastating floods of September 2014, the whole store was totally destroyed and all the stock worth lakhs was damaged. The store had to be thereby rebuilt again and this time under Mr. Anil and Mr. Ankit, it was given a totally modern touch with double storey functionality and much better ambience. The business has been rising up exponentially each year.
With great guidance and enthusiastic help from the highly skilled family’s foodie ladies as well, “Jain dry fruits” is now opening itself to the world with more upcoming innovations and benchmarks in nuts and dry fruits industry. Being great mentors and guides to people who are willing to ask for our advice, Mr. Anil receives countless calls and queries from people who are visiting the valley regarding their travel itinerary as well, and he gladly answers all of them. We are focused to guide and serve people in the best possible way within or outside our frame of work. Our desire to develop lasting relations and family bonds with people not only makes us famous and successful, but also imparts a great deal of satisfaction to our hearts. Today “Jain dry fruits” has an almost 90% repeat clientage of customers with new additions to the family each day. The blessings of the elderly and the words of gratitude from our customers keeps the zeal within us alive and motivated to keep carrying forward the good work done!