UK, Dec. 12, 2006

UK Daily Telegraph named NRI Sandeep Chadha is one of the "40 most successful young entrepreneurs"

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Sandeep Chadha, 38, known as 'Sandy' was who struck upon the idea of selling batteries. He reckons the rise of MP3 players and digital cameras is helping to keep the market alive. In 2005, he sold 35 million pounds of batteries to Superdrug and Argos.

Sandeep was just two when his family arrived in Britain from Delhi with just £10. His father began importing novelty goods from the Far East and selling them to small shops under the new company Supreme Imports.

"My parents had to work hard," he recalls. "They have passed that onto me." Originally his family lived in Newcastle, but a parents' evening at Chadha's school highlighted his "aversion to study" and his father decided that a change of scene was needed to get his education on track, taking the family to the North-West.

Although told to concentrate on his education, Chadha worked in the business when demand was high. "At 11, I was spending my weekends in Yorkshire seaside towns like Scarborough and Whitby selling watches, clocks, radios and toys from the back of a packed van to passers by and shops," he says. "My father's grumbles about school results got less and less as the business became more lucrative."

But building the business wasn't all plain sailing. In the 1980s, demand was declining and they were hit by a series of shipments of faulty goods, which threatened to wipe them out.

It was at this point that Chadha's luck turned. At a giftware event he attended with his father, he discovered that selling batteries could be the key to profitability.

"The market for batteries is invisible, vast and recession-proof," Chadha explains, adding that every home contains, on average, 25 battery-operated devices. Since the battery epiphany, the company has been going like the Duracell bunny, and Chadha is now a multi-millionaire.