Sanjay Aggarwal, founder of Spice Kitchen, explains why the business should win the Startup of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
Following my mother’s retirement several years ago, I started a small company that played to her strengths. She is of Indian descent but was born and raised in Kenya and so has an eclectic mix of cultures. She is an incredible cook and an oracle on spices, and so Spice Kitchen was born.
We turned our house into a spice laboratory, converting a whole room into an enormous spice larder. In addition to our 100-year-old hand grinder and African pestle and mortar, we bought the equipment that we needed to process, blend and roast spices. Since then, we have developed a range of international spice blends from places like India, Jamaica, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Bengal and North Africa.
We designed and developed all our marketing ourselves, creating a logo that included elephants - an animal that links India and Africa, and is dear to our hearts.
We have partnered with a number of e-commerce shops that sell our products and are continuing to develop new products, such as Mulled Wine & Masala Chai Teabags. We have also secured contracts with Indian chefs, creating bespoke spice blends for them, and sell our products at Indian cookery book launches.
All in all, everything comes back to my parents’ house, where the innovation, creativity, hard work and fun happens as we continue to please customers and improve what we do every day.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
