The owners of many sweet shops across Kolkata said the mishti sale this Dashami was far higher than the final day of last year’s Durga Puja.
Proprietors of some shops said the sale was even higher than Dashami 2019, forcing them to churn out sweets at least four times a day, compared with the usual practice of producing the delicacies twice a day to meet the high demand on special occasions.
The spurt in demand persists and owners feel it is going to continue for the next few days.
“The demand has been very high this time. We had to produce all our varieties four times a day to meet the demand across our 14 outlets in the city,” said Subhajit Ghosh of Banchharam. “The demand has surpassed our expectations.”
Market observers said the Rs 2,000-crore sweetmeat industry in Bengal has been battling a slump since the outbreak of Covid-19 in India in March 2020, despite the state government’s attempts to soften the blow by relaxing some curbs for the sweet shops a number of times.
Last Dashami, and days thereafter, had witnessed hardly enough sales for many medium and small sweet shops to remain open throughout the day.
“We were sceptical about this year’s demand even in September, when the market didn’t seem to be looking up during Vishwakarma Puja. But Durga Puja witnessed a far greater crowd. The mishti sale has gone up, too,” said Dhiman Das of KC Das Private Limited.
“It seems people are trying to make up for not buying enough mishtis last year,” Das said, breaking into a laugh.
Apart from the usual fares of rasogolla, pantua and chitrakut, the various avatars of sandesh are most in demand.
“The love for sandesh this time reminded us of the pre-Covid days,” said Partha Nandi of Girish Chandra Dey and Nakur Chandra Nandy. “It was such a relief to see the demand for sweets back, like our good old days.”
The sales on Friday (Dashami), Saturday and Sunday have prompted many shop owners to hope for, and prepare for, a sustained high demand till Diwali, or even beyond.
“Apart from the demand from buyers visiting our shops, orders from online aggregators have remained high,” said Nilanjan Ghosh of Mithai. “We hope this trend continues.”
Many shop owners are partly attributing the surge in sales to the demand for sweets among those who visited the city on the occasion of the Puja and are now returning home or to their place of work.
“We had people calling up and placing orders for korapaak sandesh that their relatives would take back with them,” said Subhajit. “Our counter at the airport has been doing very good business.”
