The Calcutta Chemical Company was a pharmaceutical company established in the city of Calcutta (now

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

) in 1916 by K.C. Das, B.N. Maitra, and R.N. Sen. Its founding was at the time of the

Swadeshi Movement The Swadeshi movement was a self-sufficiency movement that was part of the Indian independence movement and contributed to the development of Indian nationalism. Before the BML Government's decision for the partition of Bengal was made public i ...

in Bengal, where the spirit of entrepreneurship was encouraged in opposition to British manufactured goods. Although it manufactured a variety of products, the company was best known for being the originators of Margo soap and Neem Toothpaste, as well as Lavender Dew Powder. It was primarily owned and run by S.C. Dasgupta and his wife, Rekha. Rekha Dasgupta took the reins after her husband’s death in 1979, and eventually sold the company to Shaw Wallace. It was then further sold to German consumer goods company

Henkel Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Henkel, is a German multinational chemical and consumer goods company headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany. Founded in 1876, the DAX company is organized into two globally operating business units (Cons ...

, which incorporated

India. More recently, the company once again changed hands and was acquired by VVF, a contract soap manufacturer, while Henkel retained the rights to the products and focused on their marketing.{{Cite news, date=2012-03-14, title=Kolkata's comeback brands, language=en, work=The Hindu Business Line, url=http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/kolkatas-comeback-brands/article2991817.ece, url-status=live, access-date=2017-06-19, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201104061751/https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/catalyst/kolkatas-comeback-brands/article23071437.ece, archive-date=2020-11-04 The company was owned by the family of senior journalist

Swapan Dasgupta Swapan Dasgupta (born 3 October 1955) is an Indian journalist and politician. He is influential within the Indian right wing, writing columns for leading English dailies espousing Hindu nationalism. He was a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha. ...

Popular brands

Margo (soap) Margo is a brand of soap manufactured in India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by popula ...

* Neem Toothpaste * Aramusk Soap * Chek Detergent * Lavender Dew Powder * MahaBhringraj Oil (Bhringol)

References

Manufacturing companies based in Kolkata Indian companies established in 1916 Pharmaceutical companies established in 1916 Pharmaceutical companies of India