Our History
Chunilal Purshottam & Co. is one of the oldest B2B foodstuff companies in the United Arab Emirates.
Over the last seven decades, our import/export expertise has helped develop extensive relationships with hundreds of loyal customers. Our products are available in some of the best hypermarkets, supermarkets, ship chandlers, wholesalers, grocers, hotels, restaurants, caterers and a host of other customers across the Gulf region. As a result, we have a widely recognised name in the businesses we operate in.
In the United Arab Emirates alone, our client base is over a thousand.
The Humble Beginnings (early 1940s – 1948)
An entrepreneurial group of traders from Kolkata set sail for the Arabian Gulf to lay the foundations of a new dream.
They landed in there desert city and with more than a few chests of tea, and began selling them on the beach.
Encouraged by the response they received form the early Arab and local consumers, the traders travelled back home to Kolkata and developed a brand in late 1948 that eventually came to be known as Shamsheri Tea (also known as Chai Shamsheri).
Expansion (1948 – 1983)
After setting up their first office in Dubai, CP Dubai founders moved on quickly to setup offices elsewhere. Their flagship brand ‘Shamsheri Tea’ was an instant success in the region.
The growing population of Indians in the Gulf region presented other opportunities too. CP Dubai realised this burgeoning potential and in 1975, in partnership with the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), it introduced the popular brand Amul for the first time in the Arabian Gulf. Amul Ghee was the main product available during this period.
Consolidation (1984 – 1999)
In 1984, Mr. Navin Patel joined CP Dubai from its Kolkata office and took over as Managing Director a short while later.
He immediately foresaw the the high demand for CTC tea and started CP Dubai’s Tea Factory in Dubai. During the late 1980s, he introduced a new brand — Red Apple Tea — in the UAE market. It was so popular, that in a short few years, it captured a good market share of the CTC tea market.
In the 1990s, he did two things to take the company to the next level: introduce several new Amul Products categories (such as Butter, Paneer, Milk products, etc.) to the market, and successfully transform the organization from a primarily wholesale operation to a flourishing retail business – increasing the number of clients from 400 to over 1200 in a span of three years (in the late 1990s). CP Dubai therefore started delivering their products directly to its customers, that included almost all the big supermarkets in the country.
High Volume Growth (2000 to date)
During this period, CP Dubai really grew the volume of Amul products sales exponentially. This was achieved by both the introduction of several new categories and the innovative expansion of the customer base. From the corner shop to the hypermarket, from restaurants to Emirates Airlines, Amul products were sold everywhere.
The company’s staff also grew by almost 400%, along with other necessary additions to meet the growing demands of the business, such as refrigerated delivery vehicles and all facilities of modern warehousing such as a state-of-the-art cold storage facility and other storage facilities. The company also got a HACCP certification.
With all these changes, there is only one thing that CP Dubai has not changed: Its culture and values of high quality customer care and service. Banks and customers alike in the UAE know that CP Dubai is one of the most respected FMCG companies in the country.