Asra Marketing Pvt Ltd is the flagship company of Mr Sudhir Malhotra, which markets the famous and reputed range of automats products - Hand Dryers, Soap Dispensers etc and Hot Pot tea/ coffee makers . This firm was incorporated in 1997. Earlier, this business was being done by m/s Asra since well over 15 years.
The man behind this is a First Class Honours graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, WB. He has earlier worked for Larsen & Toubro and Hindustan Lever.
He developed India’s first fully automatic coffee vending machine, including automatic cup dispensing, way back in 1978. But it was too early for India. Despite the initial machines being used at the Santa Cruz airport there was really no breakthrough in business. He then started with Hand Dryers, an almost totally new concept (for India, of course). The first design was developed from scratch without any reference models. The concept of twin blowers was initiated by him. At that time even the users did not feel that such a product was important since they would install them “just to show some style”! But it was a successful product and automats is proud to have set industry standards and become recognized as innovators.
The tea machine idea could not be given up. So was born, at that time, the first Hot Pot. When introduced it was just a hot water dispenser but he nevertheless called it a Hot Pot tea/ coffee maker. Over the years all complementary features were added, like the fresh milk dispenser, unique, almost fool-proof sugar and coffee powder dispensers and a natty receptor for housing tea-bags. A great provision was also made to make kadak tea in-situ. However, keeping in mind the importance which Indians give to taste and satisfaction, he developed the Mini Tea Coffee station (MTC) – to make brewed tea, to give that satisfaction which Indians yearn for! An Espresso Express (EE) was also added to make espresso (as in Indian espresso)/ filter coffees.
