· reflections · 4 min read
What a Biscuit Taught Me About Legacy
How did a simple biscuit with an unchanged design survive nearly a century while 90% of modern startups fail? The answer might surprise you.
Walk into any indian grocery store in India, or Dubai, or London—and ask for “a packet of biscuits.” There’s a good chance you’ll be handed the same product: a yellow and white wrapper featuring the face of a chubby baby. Parle-G.
That illustration hasn’t changed since 1969, when artist Maganlal Daiya sketched it. The packaging has seen subtle updates, sure. The biscuit recipe? Largely the same since 1939.
Eighty-six years.
Here’s what makes this remarkable: In 2011, Nielsen declared Parle-G the world’s largest-selling biscuit brand. Not just in India. In the world. By 2013, it became India’s first homegrown consumer brand to cross ₹5,000 crore in retail sales. Today, it’s sold in over 180 countries and reaches more than 6 million retail outlets across India alone.
Meanwhile, 90% of startups fail. Most within their first five years. Despite cutting-edge technology, venture capital, and modern marketing tools that didn’t exist even a decade ago, they disappear.
So how does a simple glucose biscuit not only survive but dominate—without rebranding, without pivoting, without “disrupting” anything?
The Market That Never Changed
When Parle Products began manufacturing biscuits in 1939, they identified a specific audience: working-class families with children. Parents who worked long hours, earned modest incomes, and needed something affordable, filling, and sweet for their cranky kids.
That market still exists.
In 1947, as India gained independence, Parle ran advertisements positioning their glucose biscuits as an Indian alternative to British brands. The message was clear: this is ours. Decades later, walk into a small shop in any Indian village, and if you ask for “biscuit,” you’ll likely get Parle-G. Not because of aggressive marketing, but because it has become synonymous with the category itself.
The company understood something profound: you don’t modernize what doesn’t need modernizing. The core need—affordable, tasty, accessible food for families—hasn’t changed. Why should the product?
The Power of Simplicity
A Parle-G biscuit contains nothing complex. Flour, sugar, oil, glucose, milk. The packaging is straightforward. The distribution model is basic: get it everywhere, price it low. A small pack costs ₹3—about 4 cents USD. In America, a 418-gram pack sells for 99 cents.
This isn’t a premium product trying to be everything to everyone. It’s a biscuit that knows exactly what it is and who it serves. There’s no pretense. No elaborate storytelling about artisanal ingredients or sustainable sourcing. Just an honest product at an honest price.
Parle-G reminds us: clarity beats complexity. Consistency beats cleverness.
What Legacy Are You Building?
But this isn’t really about biscuits.
You wake up at 6 AM. Get the kids ready for school. Rush to work. Put in your eight hours—maybe ten. Pick them up from soccer practice, help with homework, make dinner. You’re doing everything right. You’re present. You’re providing.
But here’s the question that keeps me awake: Are you giving them a legacy to carry?
Parle-G gave four generations something to remember, something to pass down. Not through grand gestures or expensive campaigns, but through consistency. Through showing up, unchanged, reliable, generation after generation.
What will your children remember? What will they pass on to their children?
Not your LinkedIn profile. Not your job title. Not how many hours you worked or how many promotions you earned.
They’ll remember your values. Your principles. The way you treated people when nobody was watching. The lessons you taught not through words, but through how you lived.
They’ll remember if you stood for something—and stood by it. If you were the same person at home as you were at work. If your actions matched your words, year after year, just like that baby on the yellow wrapper.
Legacy isn’t built in a day. It’s not a viral moment or a grand achievement. It’s the quiet accumulation of consistent choices. It’s being there, reliably, with the same core values, even when the world around you changes.
Parle-G didn’t chase trends. It didn’t reinvent itself every few years. It knew what it stood for and never wavered.
Do you?
What legacy are you building that your children will carry forward—and their children after them?
