Mr Singh’s spicy recipe for success

Hardev Singh Sahota

A Kenyan family in Britain has captured the hearts of foodies with their exquisite brand of chilli sauces, turning a hobby into a multi-million shilling business. SHAMLAL PURI traces their success story.

What started as a hobby has turned into a multi-million shilling success story for the Nairobi-born and London-based Hardev Singh Sahota, a former university lecturer.

Sahota, 59, has always loved to experiment with spices to satisfy his and his friends’ taste buds. His interest in gastronomy goes back to his younger days when he lived with his parents in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area. Regular visits to the then popular Maru Bhajia House generated a lot of interest in their sauces.

“I attended City High School and Oshwal Boys’ Secondary School, and my regular visits to Maru’s Bhajias and other eating establishments led to my acquiring a taste for their sauces,” recalls Hardev.

Additionally, at home, his extended family headed by his grandparents, Nirmal Singh Sahota and Narinder Kaur, added a spicy touch to their daily meals.

The family lived in Nairobi for more than 20 years, before moving to London in 1974. This was where Hardev took his love for sauces to another level. He would not only make some for his family, but friends, too.

Recalling the early days, Hardev says, “I used to just give away bottles of the sauce to friends and family members without thinking about going into business.

“Everyone loved the sauce and was always telling me I should bottle it. So, in 2007, I started working on bottling my sauce, but the recipe was created a quarter of a century ago.”

He gave up his job as a university lecturer to turn his attention towards making exotic chilli sauces with an Indo-Kenyan influence. Today, his products, produced under the brand name Mr Singh’s, have captured the British market, taking a slice of business from the South African Nando’s Peri-Peri sauces, Jamaican chilli sauces, the popular Tabasco range and, to an extent, even the global brand Heinz.

In the UK Mr Singh’s sauces can be seen on the shelves of such leading names as Harvey Nichols, Selfridges and Ocado. Apart from these, hundreds of retailers stock Hardev Singh’s sauces around Britain.

“Our target is to secure around 1,000 independent retailers this year and launch our fourth product in the market.”

The sauces are also making waves around the world — in Europe, the US and South Africa.

It all started in the kitchen of his London home. Hardev invested in his project, assisted by his wife, Kamaljeet, sons Kuldip, Ravdip and Sukhdip, and daughters-in-law Amardip and Sonia.

Initially, the family sold the homemade sauce at food festivals and small corner shops largely owned by dukawallas — former East Africans. Diaspora East Africans also took to the hot and deliciously rich flavour of the sauces, enjoying a pleasurable chilli kick at the back of their throats.

Soon, production spilled out to the garden shed, where the seven members of the family crammed to bottle the sauce.

“It got pretty hot in the shed, and some of us got small burns through the clothes from the sauce splashing from the big pot. The chilli used to go everywhere, in your eyes, in your pockets and even down the sofa,” recalls Kuldip, 31, the chief executive of the family-run company.

Production shot up from a few bottles to 4,000 a week, and big orders poured in as a result of door-to-door knocking and brand-building by word of mouth.

In 2008, the family business set up a stall at the BBC Good Food Show, with a stock of 1,000 bottles, which sold out in no time.

When the BBC featured the Sahotas in their High Street Dreams programme, the UK super-market chain Asda gave them a contract to supply sauces to their 565 stores in the UK.

Production then shifted from their garden shed to a factory, where production has shot up to 200,000 bottles of all products; Mr Singh’s Barbeque Chilli Sauce, Mr Singh’s Punjabi Pesto, and Mr Singh’s Hot Punjabi Chilli Sauce, which is used for dipping, cooking, marinades and mixing with drinks such as Bloody Mary.

Unique taste

Plans are in the pipeline to export the brand to Kenya.

“We would like to see Mr Singh’s products on the shelves of Kenya’s supermarkets and shops because Kenya is an important part of our family’s heritage,” says Hardev.

“I believe there is a special Kenyan influence in our sauces — the level of hotness and the unique taste of products sold in Kenya, a country that is an amazing melting pot of African and Indian foods.”

So, do they use Kenyan chillies in the sauces?

“We would love to use Kenyan and East African chillies, but their heat is not enough for what we need,” says Kuldip.

But he does not rule out using Kenyan-grown chillies if they meet the required standards.

Kuldip is confident that production will soon increase to around 600,000 bottles as the company is signing new deals with major British and international names, which he wants to keep under wraps until the official announcement.

Ambitious future plans also include investments of around £750,000 (around Sh105 million) to boost their expansion drive and to make their organisation an international entity.

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