our success story
9 years and counting…
Walking along the streets in Sri Lanka, one of the best street foods you come across will be hoppers or ‘Appa’ as Sri Lankans call it. Bowl-shaped pancake made with fermented rice flour and coconut milk, and optionally topped with an egg, it is a traditional Sri Lankan food loved by big and small, rich and poor, natives and tourists alike. It’s just the “Happiness on a plate”!
So, with this obsession over Hoppers, it was obviously one of the best things Prasanna and Dushyantha missed when they migrated to Australia years ago. But luckily, Prasanna who came to Melbourne as a student had an opportunity to learn the secret of making hoppers when he was working at a restaurant during his early years. With his naturally curious mind, Prasanna played with the ingredients and improved the recipe to match his taste which is now the ‘signature taste’ of Crunchy Hoppers.
Prasanna started making hoppers to his friends, just for fun and then to their friends and gradually the hopper business started. Working as a full- time employee, he did a few parties only in the weekends. And with the increased workload after being a family, Prasanna was having second thoughts about doing hopper parties as he wanted to spend more time with his family and kids.
It’s during this critical time, Dushyantha migrated to Melbourne and met Prasanna, his childhood friend, for like 20 years. Prasanna and Dushyantha had been friends for more than half of their lives and they had a great chemistry between them ever since they’ve known each other. When the best friends were reunited, Dushyantha understood that Prasanna had discovered the divine taste in hoppers. “Machan, this is the best of the best! We should do this together” was his ultimate response. Hence, two hands were joined with the determination and courage to reach the clouds. Apart from being the best friends, now Dushyantha and Prasanna are business partners, a solid partnership which only strengthened with the obstacles on their way.
They both worked hard not only on parties but also on marketing and streamlining the process so that they could expand the business quickly in a shorter period of time.
They always kept their ears open to their customer’s feedback and experimented further on new industry trends.
Hence, new varieties to the Crunchy Hopper mix were introduced to tickle the taste buds of their customers; sweet hoppers (pani appa), cheese hoppers, milk hoppers, cheese and chilli hoppers, ice-cream hoppers, colour hoppers and especially Nutella hoppers which is a big hit among Sri Lankans, Indians, Chinese and Australians alike. With that, ‘You name it, we make it’ became their motto.
Soon the reputation of ‘Crunchy Hoppers’ grew rapidly, especially due to the taste and crunchiness and also because of their polite and respectful work ethics and punctuality. Within few months Prasanna and Dushyantha had to hire 2 more employees to work with them to support the increased work load. And few more next year and now Crunchy Hoppers is a team of 11; a team of brothers as they call it, because it is a one big family. Whole team work like one to give the best taste, friendliest service, and the happiest smile on their customer’s face which in turn guarantee the 100% satisfaction of their service quality.
Now, Crunchy Hoppers is available 7 days a week, from morning to midnight, for you to book your hopper parties. Whether you are planning your event indoors, outdoors, in your home backyard, or at a unique Melbourne venue, there is no limit to the hoppers catering services Crunchy Hoppers can provide you. And with their excellent Crunchy team, they are capable of catering for events with more than 600 people at a time.
They also make Crunchy Hoppers several locations around Melbourne including Lynbrook Hotel, Palms restaurant and Ambula Restaurant on Sundays. ‘Happy Crunchy Clients’ are regulars in these places and more are yet to come!
The best things in life are the people you love, the places you go and the memories you make. Let Crunchy Hoppers make the best memories for you, with their passion, delicious ‘Crunchy’ hoppers, and make your special day unforgettable not only for you but also for your loved ones!
Happy eating!