The spice and pickles king Atul V. Bedekar and Director of the V. P. Bedekar & Sons group, passed away early on Friday, following a prolonged illness, family sources said. 56-year-old Bedekar breathed his last at around 12.30 am at a private hospital after a long fight with cancer. His last rites will be held at a crematorium in south Mumbai. As a mark of respect for Bedekar, all shops and outlets of the 123-year-old Bedekar group are to remain closed.
In 1910, Girgaon, the late V. P. Bedekar started the Bedekar group and traditions of spices, pickles, papads, ready-mixes, etc in a modest way as a grocery shop.
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Then in 1917 his teenage son V. V. Bedekar launched a range of spices and in 1921 he launched pickles. This move helped in an expansion of the Bedekar shops at Thakurdwar, Parel, Dadar and Fort. As demands grew, in 1943, he added five new manufacturing units and formed it as a private limited company, with current turnover exceeding over INR 100 crore.