This is the time when our country had not received independence, somewhere in the year 1888. At this time Late Shri. Bhewrajji Agarwal had put up his shop in the name of his son Shri. Maganlal. Shri. Maganlal along with his two sons - Shri. Ambalal Agarwal and Shri. Mohanlal Agarwal started the business of gud-dani. They did this manually, which included roasting, cleaning and extraction of peanut peel. Just when his two sons were in their tender years, Shri. Maganlalji breathed his last. Undeterred, the two sons continued the business in the name of their beloved father.
Initially they used to make fine hard candy, mixed with raw roasted peanut and sold this at their shop counter in dry leaves of teak tree. In front of the shop was the Railway Station where trains journeying to and fro between Pune and Mumbai halted. The gud-dani became so famous that the people literally used to get down from the train just to purchase the gud-dani. As a result there was always heavy rush of public at the shop and it was very difficult to handle the customers. Because of this, sometimes the passengers missed their train.
As the popularity of gud-dani began to soar, soon there was a demand from the Central Railway Board requesting them to supply gud-dani in measured packages in passenger trains. Since they had very less time on hand, they put their heads together to search for an appropriate name to supply a nutritious product, which would provide hard working Railway personnel healthy nutrition for their bodies. This name would have to be such that it would spell easily on the mouths of anybody including each and every child. The new name would also have to suit the properties of the product. Finally after all the brain storming, the new name invented came to be called Chikki. Hence Chikki was introduced to the world. Soon Lonavla town became synonymous not only with the word Chikki but Maganlal Chikki.
Shri. Ambalalji later expressed his desire to divert his attention to a new business. At this juncture, Mohanlalji along with the hard work and effort of his three sons Shri. Pralhad Agarwal, Shri. Bharat Agarwal, and his nephew Shri. Chandraprakash Agarwal took the business to such great heights, which proved to be beyond imagination. The hard work and efforts of all these people bore such great fruit that Maganlal brand of chikkis not only became a trademark in the whole of India but also bore its name on the international scene. This laid the groundwork for the next series of developments. Over the years of experience and reputation Maganlal Group developed many more products like fudges, salty snacks, jelly sweets, jams, fruit syrups, and variety of mouth - watering snacks.
At Maganlal Chikki today, quality is never compromised. We are proud to state that in view of motivation to small scale industries our ‘Chikki Manufacturing Unit’ at Maganlal Food Products was selected as Pilot Project by UNIDO, FICCI (Quality Forum) & MARATHA CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE (PUNE). Under the guidance of these honorable authorities, we have met the expectations and requirements of International Code of Practice.
Next, our unit started to manufacture products according to Codex standards and due to such practice Maganlal Food Products became proud owners of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) Certification. Our products have now come to have a wide range of supply ranging from export houses to Defense establishments including a proud network of distributors all over India.