The story of a homegrown, rice milling machinery brand; and other top SMB stories of the week

In 1995, Narender Kumar spent most of his time in his small workshop in the lanes of an industrial area in New Delhi. In the workshop, he built rice milling equipment and machines and sold them to small, home-grown millers. His business, Sona Foods, steered clear of large millers that international rice milling machine brands such as Buhler catered to. This was because Buhler used advanced sheet-metal technology and laser cutting tools that were hard to come by.

Over the years, Narender and his son Vasu Naren have grown the business, now known as Sona Machinery, into a manufacturer, exporter, and supplier of milling equipment for rice processing, cleaning pulse-dal, wheat, sesame, millet, gram, lentils, maize, and corn with a specialty in rice milling machinery.