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Next, the Tatas focused on just one product: extracting oil from coconuts, for which there was huge demand in Kerala itself. There were local extractors but there were fluctuations in both price and quality. The first Tata product was launched under the brand name of Cocogem, which established itself fairly quickly as a reliable product. The next in line was a bathing soap. Till then, a lot of households used a combination of milk and gram flour for bathing, with the husk of a dry coconut acting as a brush. Soap was rarely, if ever, used for bathing.

The first instance of bathing soap manufacture in India was in 1879 but it hardly got any traction. Washing soap usage too was not very different. The first batch of washing soap was imported to Calcutta in 1895 under the name of Sunlight soap. The label proudly said: ‘Made in England by Lever Brothers.’ Lever Brothers, which later became Hindustan Lever and is now Unilever, made its entry into India with Sunlight soap. Lever Brothers set up Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing, producing the Dalda Vanaspati oil. The company expanded to all parts of India over the next few de

cades. Many today believe it to be an Indian company!

The Tatas faced a lot of resistance from Lever Brothers when they tried to introduce soap in the Indian market. Lever Brothers was aware of the stiff competition the company would face if the Tatas were to enter the soap and detergent market. The Tatas had already entered the electricity generation market, and there was nervous excitement about the steel factory being set up in the eastern part of India. Bombay was proud of its first five star hotel, the Taj Mahal, as it was of Swadeshi Mills, while Empress Mills in Nagpur was running to full capacity. Lever Brothers had reason to worry.

The Tatas launched their first bar of soap at ` 10 for 100 bars and named it 501. The history behind the name is quite unique. Levers was a British and Dutch company. The Tatas did not want a name which would associate them with the British. At that time, a French soap brand called 500 was a serious competitor to Levers. So, Tata chief executive Jal Naoroji, the grandson of Dadabhai Naoroji, decided to name their product 501.

Excerpted from Pg 38 of Tatas: How a family built a business and a nation by Girish Kuber