Haldiram's, The Snack Maker Eyed By Foreign Investors

From fried snacks to local sweet delicacies, family-run snack maker Haldiram's has long been one of the country's most popular food brands. Now, foreign investors like Blackstone and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority want a big bite of it.

Haldiram's was last year also an acquisition target for Tata Group, one of country's biggest conglomerates.

Here are some facts about the popular brand:

* Haldiram's started in 1937 from a "tiny shop" in Bikaner of Rajasthan. It later expanded to New Delhi in 1983.

* The company's website says it has 1,000 distributors and its products are available in 7 million outlets. It also exports to many foreign countries including Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and Australia.

* One of its most popular snacks is "bhujia", a crispy fried Indian snack made with flour, herbs and spices and sold for as little as 10 rupees (12 U.S. cents) across mom-and-pop stores. Haldiram's calls it "an irresistible Indian snack" which can "captivate your taste buds".

* Haldiram's started exporting products in 1993. The U.S. was its first market, where it began with 15 savoury products, and later, in 2016, opened its first overseas factory in the UK.

* Beyond snacks, Haldiram's also sells ready-to-eat and frozen foods such as curries and rice items. It also runs more than 150 restaurants which sell street-style food, as well as Chinese and western cuisine.

* Last year, during deal talks with Tata, Haldiram's was seeking a $10 billion valuation. Reuters has previously reported Haldiram's annual revenues are around $1.5 billion.

* Haldiram's has almost a 13% share of $6.2 billion savoury snacks market, Euromonitor International estimates.