Kozhikode: Chocolates in vibrant coloured wrappers featuring beaming faces of candidates; taste the new flavour of this election season. Asheeka Khadeeja, an entrepreneur from Kozhikode is receiving bulk orders from mainstream political parties for her customised chocolate covers. The orders for chocolates with the candidates name and election symbol printed on the wrapper are also pouring in from Telangana, Assam, Maharashtra etc.
Asheeka is a chocolate maker from Karassery, near Mukkom in Kozhikode. She has specialized in making customised chocolates for parties, celebrations and gift packets. The first dispatch she sent was to Shafi Parambil, the UDF candidate from Vatakara parliament constituency.
She provided them chocolates with Shafi's smiling picture and Congress party's election symbol. It was a start and chocolate with the candidate's picture became the talk of the town. She has already designed chocolate covers for the LDF candidate K K Shailaja. Later Asheeka got orders from Thushar Vellappally, NDA candidate from Kottayam. KC Venugopal, who contests from Alappuzha is also waiting for the Rochies chocolates with his name and photo.
"Recently I got a bulk order from a team which leads the election campaign for 10 candidates in Telangana. They ordered 1,000 chocolates for each candidate. But we were helpless, as we cannot manage such huge orders at present. We provide premium products only," said Asheeka to ONManorama. For election campaigns they set a standard size priced at Rs 25. Normally they provide chocolates in different sizes and shapes.
Asheeka's chocolate love led her to this business, despite her graduation in Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT). " I am a chocolate lover. That's how I started to research chocolate making, gradually this enthusiasm led to a business," she said. " Ours is a different type of business-We make the product only after confirming the order, among which most of them are customised. We get orders from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Rajasthan, Kashmir and so on. Once we got an order from the Delhi Secretariat too. We made gift packets to be sent to the Prime Minister's office," said Asheeka.
Just like every new gen entrepreneurs, social media is the promotion platform for Asheeka too. Her husband Roshan Suhail who is a software engineer is her inspiration to transform her passion to an innovative business.
