How I Built This with Guy Raz - Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Food: Sukhi Singh and Dalbir Singh

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

With no strategic plan and very little money, Sukhi Singh figured out a way to sell Indian food at scale across the U.S.—but it took her almost 20 years to do it. In the early 1990's, she shuttered her faltering café in Oakland, California and enlisted her husband and three children to help her sell bottled curry paste at local stores—and Indian meals at farmers markets. But the real breakthrough came when Sukhi expanded into refrigerated/frozen meals, and landed her chicken tikka masala and samosas in Costco. After growing the family business without a cent of outside investment, Sukhi's Gourmet Indian Food is now one of the biggest Indian food brands in the U.S, with over fifty products available in around 7,000 stores.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are looking for a way to upgrade their digital footprint. Well, whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace is the easiest way to build a great website that stands out. It's an all-in-one website platform that gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your products, and get paid. Anyone can use Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools to build an online presence that truly reflects what makes your business special.

There are templates, intuitive drag-and-drop editing, and even an AI-enhanced website builder. Then, Squarespace's built-in analytics tools help you make smarter business decisions. Review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue all in one place. Looking to grow your business, Squarespace even offers fast, easy business financing

through Squarespace capital. Go to Squarespace.com slash built for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code built to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Loans issued by Celtic Bank and serviced by Stripe, all loans subject to credit approval. This show is in partnership with Airbnb. This past summer, I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries, visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb. It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city,

made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.ca. Hey, really quick before we start the show, did you know that how I built this is also a book? Well, it's now out in paperback and available wherever books are sold. So check it out, how I built this, the book. out of the show. You know, we're a family business. We're all in the family business. And there was

this, you know, need to separate the business from our family life. And it was becoming harder and harder as the demands of the business grew. I personally, I told the children, I said, listen, somebody asks us to make something, we make it. But I do not know how to grow this business strategically anymore. I do not know. I need somebody else. You know, we need some outside intervention here to help us see this business to its potential, but more importantly, really to preserve a lot of our family. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Suki Singh and her family built a multi-million dollar brand by betting that there are two

types of people in the world, those who love Indian food, and those who just haven't tried it yet. There are some products that in general, you only buy once. An enameled Dutch oven, a leatherman knife, a Vitamix. But when it comes to food, in order for a brand to stay viable, it has to be a product you buy a lot, so at least three to four times a year. This is a realization Suu Kyi Singh had at about the midpoint of creating her brand, her early products were mainly spice mixes and sauces, and they intrigued customers who

bought them at the grocery store, but then they wouldn't use the products right away, because you still needed to chop up vegetables and meat and do a bunch of prep in order to use the sauces. And so they often sat in the back of the pantry for weeks or months, and for Suki, it meant she wasn't getting enough repeat business. So as she started to investigate the reason behind this, it became clear that she had to make it even easier for people to eat Indian food. And it was that problem that led to the most important innovation in her business,

refrigerated and frozen, fully prepared meals that could be heated up in minutes, food that didn't feel intimidating to make it home. Today, Suki's Gourmet Indian food is mainly prepared food, but it's also sauces, samosas, spice mixes, you name it. And it's now one of the biggest Indian food brands in the U.S. But getting there involved a 30-year journey that started with a single deli in downtown Oakland, California. This was shortly after Suki, her husband surrender, and their three kids moved to the U.S. to start a new life. The kids all grew up to become part of the business, and we'll actually hear from one of them a little later. In building Sukis, there would be many years of disruption and struggle and a fire and earthquake along the way.

But today, without taking a shred of outside investment, Sukis is doing an estimated $50 million a year in revenue, and its products are available in around 7,000 stores across the country. Suki, the founder, grew up in Deradun, India, a city in the foothills of the Himalayas. It was a multi-generational family, parents, grandparents, two sisters, and many uncles and aunts coming and going. Well, I was known as the tomboy of the family. I would always be climbing trees, tearing my clothes. And my mother used to say, you know, we need to buy her clothes made of iron because anything I buy her as she tears. So I was a sportsman.

I was the best sportsman in my school. And basically I wasn't interested in studies. So I grew up under the shadow of my elder sister who was very good looking and also was very good at academics, very good at embroidery, stitching, all that's good for a girl to be. And I wasn't interested in most of those things. I just walk away from them. Tell me about your parents. I think they were both doctors. Is that right, Suki?

Yes, they were both doctors. My mother was a gynecologist and my father was a pathologist. And presumably that meant that they were pretty important people, right? What do you sort of remember about them, you know, and about their work? Well, my mother was very outgoing. And I remember her being the one who was a driving force in the family all the time. There were only two lady doctors in their adorn at that time. And she was one of them.

Now that I come to think of it, it was a small town. So we would go walking to her clinic and we'd have people whispering behind us, oh, she's so-and-so's daughter, you know. I mean, it sounds like your mom was like a role model for a very career-driven parent. Was your dad the same way? Well, dad was not really born to be a doctor. He loved cooking and he loved. doing hobbies like fretwork and all that.

And so there was a constant friction between the two of them because she was so concentrated on her career. But she paid a lot of attention to our growing up. And my dad supplied all the rest of it, like cooking. And, you know, I remember we were the first household in which a vesting house oven was brought because he was going to cook some sponge cakes and we all sat by him and learned how to make sponge cakes.

But that was his real interest was in that. But he again became a doctor because his father was a doctor. Suki, you grew up in the Sikh tradition. And did you grow up fairly observant? I mean, there are different sort of levels of being an observant Sikh. For example, some Sikhs are completely vegetarian. They won't eat any animal products. Did you grow up with that kind of tradition?

No. Those, the Sikhs that are totally vegetarians are kind of formalized. in the refate. Right. So, for example, alcohol or chicken or butter, things like that, were consumed in your house? Butter is consumed everywhere all the time.

Butter is, the cow is one of the reasons why the cow is sacred is that if you have a cow, you have everything that you need to eat. Yeah. So, and you can't eat it. If you can't eat the cow, you just take what she gives you. So butter is not an issue. But chicken, yeah,

we had chicken drinks, It wasn't looked upon favorably, not because of the faith, but generally. Just culturally, yeah. Yeah. I guess you as a young woman decided to pursue teaching. You started to train to be a teacher. And I read it at around age 20, your parents and you decided that it was time for you to find, maybe find a husband. Well, my sister got married at 19.

And when I reached 20 and I wasn't even engaged yet, it was. It was kind of a, oh, when is she going to get married? It's so crazy to think about today, right? Because 20 seems so young. Very frankly, I wanted to get married myself. I wasn't one of those who, as I said, I wasn't a studious and I wasn't looking forward to having a career. I had very early on decided that I just wanted to be a mother at home with the children. And Surinda, my husband, used to visit our house all the time.

And he was very, very kind. He was very caring. He would take care of the women folk in his household. And I used to look at it and say, wow, what a great boy he is. And early on decided that I would love to have a man like him as a husband. You got married in 1967 or maybe 68. 68. And you started a family.

And by the way, were you a good cook? I mean, did you like to cook already at that young age? Yes. If I saw somebody cooking something that I liked, I never forgot it. There used to be a maid whom my grandmother loved, and she would only eat food cooked by her hand or her own hands. So we had this little mud store. It was not stove. It's a cook, I don't know what you'd call it,

but in Hindi you call it chula outside in the veranda. And she had an iron walk on top, and she made this eggplant and potato dish. I used to love it. And I remember the recipe even now. So, no, cooking, I was fond of. And then my father pushed us into all this baking and stuff as well. And so we learned how to make fish fingers, how to make trifle puddings, how to make kidney pies.

Very, very young age. So he was, so you were cooking like English food? Both, Indian and English. All right. So it's the early 1970s, I guess. You and Surrender get married. And at that time, he's an officer in the Indian Air Force. And I guess it eventually gets posted to London.

So you move there. And you start to raise a family and I guess you're doing some teaching. And you're also doing a lot of home cooking. So what do you remember about that time? Well, I love cooking, but I don't like spending hours in the kitchen. I have to make my work short. So Srinya would get home and I would get home half an hour before him and quickly put dinner together because I had these sauces made and ready in the fridge.

So what were the sauces? What would you make? So this was basically a curry sauce. The beginning I used to do all this cutting of onions one day and roasting it and putting it there. But then later on I had found this dehydrated onions in the local cash and carry and I started making it with that, which worked very well. I used to make the sauce and keep it. And so I had the sauce always and just put less. rentals on one side and curry on the other and rice on the third stove and dinner used to be ready

in half an hour. So I guess the two of you eventually returned to India. Yes. And from what I understand throughout the 70s, you moved around India quite a bit. And then I guess it was around like 1982 that you had relatives living in the U.S. who sponsored you to apply for a green car to emigrate, right? Yes. We applied for it.

And we got called to the embassy within months to immigrate. So we didn't want to move at that time. My in-laws were totally against it. They were the elders of the family. And it was not accepted that you do things against your parents' wishes. So then we just put it on hold and put it on hold. We said, you know, we are not ready. We are not ready.

When we'll be ready, we will get in touch with you. So you were still in India, not ready to leave you. But then, I guess, 1984 was a turning point for you and your family. This was the year when India's Prime Minister, India Gandhi, was assassinated by her bodyguards, who happened to be Sikh, ethnically Sikh. And I guess that led to a huge massive unrest, right? In the country, and quite a lot of violence directed toward the Sikh minority in India. What do you remember about that time?

I remember the day that this happened. And then, of course, everything was shut down for. a whole day, we had news on the TV about her being assassinated and that revenge would be taken on these assassinating. So hordes of people came through the roads and went into all the sick businesses. So they were just broken into, and then we had roits all over. And suddenly, overnight, I became a sick from an Indian. This is a, it's a complex story. And we don't have time to go into the details, but it sounds like that event sort of made you scared about... The future. Yeah, it changed the atmosphere around us too because it just killed something in us

that we were suddenly outsiders, foreigners in our own country. It was horrible. It was just horrible. And that was a catalyst. That was, that to you was, in your mind, it was time to leave with your family. Yeah. Well, we thought that if tomorrow this thing doesn't improve and the kids grow up and they're going to say, if you had this opportunity, why didn't you leave? Yeah. And the Royds were a tipping thing, but the main thing why we came to the U.S. was that the kids, children would have a better education and a better future in the U.S. So we decided to just take the plunge and move. So I guess you and Surrender at this time are in your late 30s, right? and you eventually settle in the Bay Area.

And from what I've read, you initially started to work with your sister and brother-in-law. They ran an ice cream, like an ice cream business. And I guess they had like a fleet of trucks that would go out and sell ice cream like in different neighborhoods. Yes. They bought a whole company from the East Coast and they already had 20 trucks. That part of it, my brother-in-law managed. We just ran the business to make sure that the truck. trucks went out every day and they were stocked with the right amount of ice cream.

Then you were fine. And we knew that the company is making money. Wow. Okay. So you were helping to manage this business. How did you feel about doing that job? Was it fulfilling? Was it interesting?

It was a lot of learning for me. You know, my brother-in-law, as I call him, my business guru. He taught me everything. And he also expected a very high degree of, like, you know, I got my driver's license. and he said, oh, now you have a driver's license, just go and get the city permit for this truck, this heavy truck. And I just got my license today. But I wasn't going to tell him that I'm not going to do it.

I just took the truck and I went and got the license and came back. But, you know, it's things like that. He expected me to do and I just did them because I wasn't going to tell him I don't know how to do it, which taught me a lot of stuff and gave me a lot of confidence in being able to do stuff on my own. So how to balance a check. book, how to call in salary, how to do banking, because these drivers would come back with change coming out of our ears. So we had to roll them all up at night and then do bank deposits every second day because you couldn't have all that money in the house.

So I guess at a certain point, you and Surrender are basically running this business. But I imagine also thinking that maybe you wanted to start something of your own. Yes. We had come. You know, my mother-in-law in India, when we were leaving, she said, why are you going? You have everything over here and I said, you know, you'll go and start working for other people over there. I said, no, I'm going there to give people jobs, not to take a job. And something said in jest at that time was something which I really followed over here and said, okay, so, and we were managing the street-wending business of ice cream, which was a lot of hard work.

And so I said, if we have to work so hard, we should be doing it for ourselves, not for somebody else. You know, we had the responsibility of everything, the money, the banking, the cleaning, the hiring of drivers, the maintaining of the trucks, which by this time we had 25 ice cream vehicles going out. So we had to keep running around. A truck broke down on the route. We had to go and get it towed back. So there was a lot of work and we did it like our own. So we said if we have to do so much work, we should be looking to do something for ourselves. So I guess in 1988, was a deli in downtown Oakland that went up for sale and you decided to go for it. And you knew how to cook, but you thought this could be a great opportunity. And the idea was that you would work there,

you would run the deli. Yes. And I guess from what I understand that to buy the deli, you had to take a loan, right? I think you had to borrow like $30,000 from family and friends in order to get this deli. That is correct. And what kind of food did the deli serve? It was just a regular sandwich place, breakfast and lunch salads and sandwiches. I used to open the deli at 6.30 in the morning. From 6.30 to 10.30, we had already done $350. And it was the maximum profit-making business because coffee only costs you 10 to 15 cents and you sell it for a buck. And the biggest attraction to us of this deli was the fact, you know, we had come to the United States for the kids. And we had decided very early on that one parent would be at home to see the kids off to school and one

parent would be at home when the kids came back from school. That was a big driving force in us selecting the kind of business we did. And it was just you or did you hire some people to work there with you? Oh no. I had four people working for me. And how did it go? I mean, how did it do? Well, it went very well for the first three months. In fact, then I, you know, looking at how to increase sales, you know, cappuccinos had just come up, espresso machines had just come up, so decided to add an espresso machine. As I said, the first four or five months were great, till we had this prima coffee open right across the street. Like a competitor opened up across the street that was also selling coffee?

Yes, only coffee and breakfast. And what did that do for your business? It didn't touch our lunch trade, but the morning trade was bad. hit, which was our money-making treat. Wow. We were still profitable, but very little. I mean, you know, it had become stressful because every day counting the money would be like, oh my gosh, now what do I do to fix this?

But, you know, this is one of the biggest lessons I learned in Delhi was that you not only have to learn the business, you have to learn what to do when things go wrong. What do we do now? So some of your business is being taken away by this coffee shop, and then, disaster strikes, literally, the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, magnitude 6.9, massive earthquake. What happened to your business? I mean, presumably the earthquake affected the businesses around your deli, right? I mean, did customers stop coming?

Yes, because their companies left the area, and they all broke their leases and left and went to Pleasanton, where there were new buildings. Businesses in the area that you had depended on, workers, those businesses did not come back to downtown Oakland? No, no. So to try to increase sales, I started making Indian food and serving it. And did people respond to it? Because you had not been serving Indian food. This was just a traditional kind of American-style breakfast lunch deli. That's correct. It did well. You know, I used the sauce that I used to make. in London. We'd have rice and the curries we would make. And we had this rare oven in which I would sometimes put the dory chicken and sometimes put the chicken curry and serve it. I wonder, by the way,

why didn't you serve Indian food from the beginning? Were you worried that there was no market for it? Yes, number one, number two, you know, there's this notion that, you know, Indian food smells a lot, which it does. You know, if you cook curry in a room, you will have the smell over there for two days. And there was this thing that, oh, if your breakfast trade will suffer because you'll have these smells of curry and people don't like the smell coming in. This was a general feeling we got. And I was advised against doing it.

But then I finally took the plunge that time and I said, what the heck? It can't get worse than it is. Let me try it. Did that help turn the business around at all? No, it added some to the grosses, but we had fallen far below our break-even points. I mean, Delhi was owned by my sister and me together. So I had to get some money for us only. So I started doing Indian catering on the weekends,

which gave us some good money because there were not too many people doing that kind of a thing and the restaurants around the area were not very good. So my kids used to be my free labor for that and we would do catering and that was helping us to survive that period. Meantime, I mean, this was a kind of a challenging time, not just in Oakland, but in a lot of cities in the country, when crime was quite high, you know, were you ever worried about safety in downtown Oakland? Oh, yes. Crime kept going up because as the city emptied out, because of the earthquake, other people also suffered. And then the final straw was on Christmas Eve. I was just sitting there and a friend had come to pick up some food. and we were held up at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Wow. So at that point, I told Surintern, I said, you know, this is not worth my life. Just let's sell it and get out of this. I can't do anything else also because my whole day is committed over here. So you decided in 1992 to sell the deli, and I think you sold it at a loss, right? Something we had bought for 175, we sold for 65 and got out. Wow. So you lost half of your money that you put into it.

Mm-hmm. Wow. But it sounds like you didn't give up on the idea of doing something in food. So when I was making the Indian food in the deli and I was using my curry paste to do it, so I started bottling it in little bottles and putting it on the counter. And people started buying that. And then my sister, she took food, cooked with it to work one day. And one of her co-workers said, oh, wow, my husband loves Indian food. I wish I could cook like this for him.

So my sister took the sauce for her And she happened to be the wife Or one of the managers at Berkeley Bowl It was one of the two ethnic high-level stores In the Bay Area at that time So when her husband ate it He said, tell this woman to bring this stuff to me I will sell it for her

So these were like curry paste that you were making And you could basically use it as a starter To you could add meat and vegetables And some water Okay And then you could have have a curry. Yes. You know, if you open an Indian cookbook and you look at a recipe, it has 14 ingredients on it and people just shut the book and leave, put it away. It's too difficult to

collect all that stuff or to follow those directions because cooking Indian food is very visual and you have to see exactly how much the onions have to be roasted or how long it has to cook on the stove. So this was just, it was a no-brainer. Like Dorenda used to say, if you can boil water, you can do this. And, you know, the first. orders that I put in, it had no directions, only net weight and ingredients, and the name Sukhi's curry paste. So, but it started selling at Berkeley Bowl. Yep, at Berkeley Bowl.

Every time I'd go back, their shelf used to be empty. When we come back in just a moment, how Sukki's sauces and spices wound up in the cafeteria at Hewlett-Packard and how she powered through one of the worst things that can happen to a food business, a fire in the kitchen. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 1990s, and Suki is starting to sell jars of curry paste at grocery stores around the Bay Area. For help, she recruits her husband and her three children, Bonnie, Sanjog, and Del Bier. And when we're doing this interview, Delvier was actually right there with his mom, talking a lot of.

lot about what it was like to be part of the family business. Today, he's in his 40s, but back when his mom started selling her curry paste around town, he was like 12 or 13. Oh, man, you know, it was sort of for the family, you know, it was all hands on deck. We would make the curry paste. Mom, it sort of trained everyone how to do that. Saturday mornings at the Singh household were times that we would go out. You know, I couldn't drive at the time. I didn't even have a a driver's permit. The whole family would make, you know, cut chicken and do all of these things. And then my mom would go to a grocery store to do a demo. My dad would go to a grocery store to a demo. My sister would drop me off, you know, to a store in the morning. And I would do a

demo. She would go do a demo. Sometimes she would come pick me up and drop me to another store to do a demo. And so that's that's sort of how, you know, life revolved for us is everyone was working, you know, in our free time to see the succeed. And, you know, I was a, the youngest one. I was the baby in the family. Yeah, because you were eight, you were eight when you guys moved to the U.S., right? I was eight, and then by the time the business started, I was about 12, 13, and I was never made to feel like there was any stress in the house or there was any shortage of money, although all of them, you know, all of them really knew it, and everyone was working very hard to make sure that, you know, we could get by. And just to roll back for a second,

Suki, before W.R. was going out and doing all these demos, how were you even getting the product into stores. Like, were you just meeting with a bunch of managers, like store managers and buyers? Yes. I would just call the stores. And, you know, 95% of the time, they said just come in.

So I would take my little basket tote with an electric stove in it and like the small foreman grills. And I'd have the grill there and a stove there and my sauce pans and marinated chicken for the tunduri, a can of garbanzar beans. And I would cook. rice and take it from the house. So I would serve them a whole Indian meal in 25 minutes of the demo.

And by the time, we had been established a business name and called it quick and easy Indian foods. Quick and easy Indian food. Easy EE. EZE. That was my brilliant idea of trying to make it memorable. Nice. Yeah. In retrospect, the horrible idea. But at the time, it seemed like a, it seemed like a stroke of genius. And how are you, Suki, how would you package it? You would just put it in, like, what would you put it in? Bottles, all by hand. And we put them on and dry them with a hair dryer. You would dry each ceiling band with a hairdriar.

Yeah, only then it shrunk onto the lid, no? Wow. And you were putting the labels on by hand? Yes, everything. And how many bottles of this could you make a day? In the beginning, it was, I think, maybe 10 to 15 cases a day I could do. Yeah, one person could do, you know, I would at times do it solo. during the summers and so forth,

and I think we could get through about 20 cases, and a case was 12 bottles. Okay. And how much would you sell a bottle for? We started with, there'll be what is what, $3 or $350 a bottle? Yeah, it was $3.50 a bottle for in the beginning. $350 a bottle until we realized that this was not going to pay for any help.

We were just calculating it on a free labor. Yeah, because $350 a bottle, I mean, even if, they all sold out, it was still going to be hard to make this profitable at that rate. So in order to scale up, it was going to require a different way of thinking about it. Yeah, I needed a place. By that time, I found a commercial kitchen in Emeryville, which is just next to Oakland. And it was an Indian food, fresh Indian food manufacturer who was to go around to the health stores in the Bay Area. So she didn't work in her kitchen Wednesdays. So I approached her and I rented her kitchen. So I would go in in the morning. I would make everything.

And then the whole family would come in at five o'clock, whatever time they finished work or college or school. And about seven of us used to pack and clean and label and leave the kitchen at 2 o'clock at night. Wow. And when you would do demos, how do they do? I mean, did people, because this is, I mean, we're talking about like the early to mid-90s, right? Indian food is already, I think at that time, people were familiar with Indian food, or am I wrong? Were they not? No, they were not. If I stood at a demo and I was demoing the product, people would come by and say, oh, curry, I don't like that. So I had to convince them as to say, you know, Indian curry is different from curry in a Chinese restaurant. Try it. If you don't like it, I've got some lovely mango chutney here for you to change your flavor with.

And 30% of the people who would walk into the store would stop at the demo table, but about 80% of the people who would taste it would buy it. Wow. So some good stores like Berkeley Bowl, we would go in and I would sell 15 cases of the product in one day. So over the weekend, we would get rid of the 200 cases we made during the week. So I guess around this time, this is the mid-90s, you got a call from somebody working at Hewlett-Packard. from what I understand they were looking to, they wanted to buy a tunduri oven for their cafeteria because they had so many Indian employees at HP and they were calling you for some advice. Is that, is that right? What happened? She wanted to rent a Tandur. So she called me and I said, who told you I have a Tandu? I didn't have a Tandu. But it aroused my curiosity and I said, so can I come and see what you think? But I had no idea that this thing called cafeterias are there in these huge buildings.

and so she said, sure. So I went in and I looked at her and she was roasting the onions and making the sauce for the curry and she had to do it because nobody could do it right. So I told her, I said, why would you be wasting your time?

Buying my curry paste and your $10 an hour employee can do the curry for you. So she got very excited and she started buying my things. But I had to increase the line very quickly because just doing curry and the nuri wasn't going to make it for her. She needed other items as well like gobi alu or dal and all that stuff.

And I wanted to maximize my sales. So I quickly put together a spice mix for the vegetables and the spice mix for the lentils and started selling her that as well. And this was food that they were serving in their cafeteria to their employees. Yes. Once a week is when they started doing Indian food. So you were sort of, you kind of became like their. supplier and their consultant for HP, just sort of like almost accidentally.

That's correct. So for me, every delivery that I made to them was $500 and it was gone in two weeks. So it was better than any store. I would go and stock up a store, even Berkeley Bowl, I would put $300 worth a product on the shelf and it took like three weeks to sell it. I think, you know, we grew channels in parallel. And in the meantime, our grocers had gone up. I needed a space of my own. I couldn't do this or picking up these 200 cases from California glass in the morning and reaching the kitchen and putting everything together.

And then everybody coming and cleaning and leaving that night. It was getting too hard to manage. So I had started pushing for having my own location. And then, again, out of the blue, somebody called me and said, I hear you're looking for a place. I said, yes, but I don't want a 5,000 square foot warehouse. I can't afford it. He said, no, no, no.

I have this place in San Dianro, and it was 1,100 square feet for 75 cents a square foot. It just was just too good to be true. And I came back and to my husband, I said, we need to have the space. I can't do the carting of bottles back and forth. And, you know, it was just too time-consuming and I couldn't get any further. So he said, well, you're going to get into a rent-serie.

situation and electricity situation. Again, we'll be paying, you know, bills every month. I said, but there's no way I can grow without having that. But I said, I'll get to give you the money of the rent. Don't worry about it. And I guess one of the things the new kitchen allowed you to do was to expand the business into a whole new channel, right? Like, I mean, you were selling bottled sauces in stores

and you had the cafeteria business at HP, but then you could move into selling meals, like entire Indian meals at farmers markets too, right? Yes. What I'd heard about was that you did very well at the markets and you got cashed straight away. So the first day I went there and of course I tried to do it fancy. I had this chicken cooking over there.

The smell was wafting all over the market. People started coming in and we sold $375 and came home. We were so excited. Now we knew that they were about 25 farmers markets in the Bay Area that we could expand to. And that was one stream that had started. Dalby, what do you remember about that? Yeah, so it was a really unique business too, right?

The farmer's markets provided the fuel for everything else in what we were doing. You bought the ingredients on a Monday. You made them during the week. You sent them out on a Thursday or Friday, and you got paid that week for it. So the whole cycle was compressed, and it didn't require a whole lot of money to run that business, per se. And it provided fuel for us to use and grow. other channels where the cost of doing business was much more. So it was growing everything simultaneously.

The stores were doing what they were doing. We had the retail already gone to 100 stores. And then the farmers markets and food service is what we concentrated on. Okay, so the business is growing. But then you guys have a pretty major setback. You have this new kitchen in San Leandro in the East Bay of San Francisco Bay Area. but in 2000, a fire breaks out and does a lot of damage. So what did that mean for the business?

I mean, that must have been hugely disruptive. Yeah, I mean, that was actually the summer of 2000. And it was pretty devastating, to say the least. We had just built this kitchen. It wasn't that old. Mom had just had her knee surgery. And it was a pretty massive knee surgery. I mean, she, anyone that knows her,

knows that she's sort of go, go, go, go, go, all the time. And, you know, she sleeps like three hours a night. She's going all the time. And that's what this business required from her. And this was the first time that I had seen her debilitated. It was heartbreaking. Yet at the same time, there was so much going on and so much commotion and so much this sort of need to, hey, what are we going to do?

Like, how we're going to make this better? How we're going to fix this? That you really didn't have time to sit there and think about how terrible of a thing it was. and we had to I had to find alternative places to work because it was the start of the farmer's market season and we had all this crew that we had hired to do the markets and their livelihood depended on it.

I could close the doors for 10 days or 15 days while the insurance and all kicked in but their daily food depended on what they got to go and sell at the markets. So I was very lucky I had the staff of Indian people who found this restaurant in San Francisco, they had the cooking space available. So I sent off a whole bunch of people over there to start doing the samosas and the nans.

And I found another one in Richmond to do Indian bread like rotis and all. So we didn't miss a single farmer's market. We gave them the samosas and the nans and the products we still had. W.R., how did you get involved in the company? I mean, I knew you were working since you were a kid, but you went on to UCS.

to study engineering, and then you joined the family business pretty soon after. How did it happen? Yeah. So, you know, we all never really left the business, right? And so all throughout high school, you know, we were doing farmers markets. And then when I would come back for the summer from college, it was farmers markets, you know, all through the summer as well. So, you know, one of the markets we would do is up in Tahoe area, which was about three hours away from the Bay Area. And my sister and I would get up at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday and drive out to Tahoe, you know, set up for a market, do a market there, then go to Reno, do another market there, and then come back, you know, late that night, back at the house at 11 p.m. or so. And so we never really left the business. And after college,

I got a job at a local software company called Macromedia. And even while I was working at Macromedia, on the weekends, I was doing Farmers Markets for the business. And then in 2005, Macromedia had just been acquired by Adobe, and I was starting to feel like I wanted to do more in the family business. And I think your sisters were also around this time, were getting involved full time. That's correct. It was funny. When I told them that I was joining the business, they both sort of had an intervention of sorts. They took me out to dinner, and they're like, what are you doing?

You've got this career. you're giving this up. And, you know, I was like, hey, this is kind of what I want to do. And, you know, let's give it a shot. And I've been doing it for a while anyways. And I think that there's something here. And so I joined. And six months later, my older sister joined the business.

She started running operations. This is Bonnie? This is Bonnie. That's correct. And then six months after that, you know, Sunjo, really couldn't resist that the whole family business was together and, you know, that she would not be able to do it. So she, you know, quit her job. She had a great job over at eBay and was doing very, very well.

And she said, hey, I'll take a pay cut and join the family business. And, you know, a year after I joined, here we were, all five of us in the business. So, you know, nothing gave us more pleasure than they came. And I made sure that they understood that they were not going to get the salaries they were getting at their respective jobs. But they wanted to do this. I mean, anytime I needed help, I just had to shout and they were there. So I think around 2006, you rebranded the name of the company, just Suki's Gourmet Indian Foods.

Did that come from the kids, that idea? Yes. So we decided to change the name and have it more of a gourmet kind of feel in this thing and made it Suki's Gourmet Indian Foods. And we engage with a branding and packaging firm. This is the first time that we'd actually gotten someone from the outside to help us with our packaging. And, you know, for us,

was actually a very positive experience. We sat in these meetings and, you know, they're presenting us with these mock-up boards of this is what your brand story is and this is what the feel of it is. And while we were always a little skeptical of all of that, this was really great. I mean, this really for the first time started to make us think about what we were building as a brand and a feeling rather than just a product that we were putting out. And W. I mean, the year you joined, what was your product line? I mean, what were, things that the brand was making. It was the curry paste and the spice mixes. And what else? Was there anything else that you guys were making at the time? She had started making a line of fresh meals

that used to go out to the grocery store specifically. And these were individual entrees with rice and lentils and chicken ticam masala, for example. We had then the curry paste and spice mixes, which were also in retail as well as food service, the bulk packaging. And then at the farmer's markets, whole foods that approached us, and they were just expanding. And a big part of their draw was the hot bars. They were putting out, you know, just really top quality international cuisine in their hot bars, and they were having a hard time with Indian food. So they approached us and said, hey, can you guys help us with Indian food? So we made a whole line of Indian food for them, for the hot bars as well. Right. But your main revenue was coming from basically white labeling

stuff, right? Like it wasn't from the brand, Sukis. That was Sounds like that was a smaller part of your revenue at that point. At that point, the farmer's markets were actually, I would say, the majority of our business. Wow. 60% plus. I mean, we were at one point doing about 65 markets a week. At the end, when we stopped doing them. Wow.

But also, I realized it was seasonal business, and we needed something to sustain us through the non-season. Right. And this was a critical pivot for you, right, when you decided to expand into frozen meals. So do you remember what you're thinking was, like how you came up with that idea? Well, you know, we were doing these demos crazily all over the Bay Area. And I was doing a demo at Whole Foods Palo Alto when this lady came by and she says, you know, never go out of business. I love your product.

It's a great product. And I said, okay, let me ask her a few questions. So I said, so how many times do you use my products? She says, well, we eat home three days a week. week and I cook Indian food at least once in three weeks. And I told myself, I said, this bottle is going to cook four pounds of curry for her and she's not going to come back to buy this for another four months. But then she was checking out her groceries and I was checking out lunch for myself and I saw the stuff that she bought. She had four frozen food entrees and this one

bottle of curry is sticking over there and I said, Sukhi Singh, you're going the wrong direction. You need to have something with the consume and come back for the weekend again, rather than just this one bottle which is going to last them and then maybe even after using it twice, which she forgets about it, and throws it away. That time I decided we have to do something which is instantly consumable and they come back for more. That's where I started pushing food service and the frozen food and all, because I knew that we had to grow in areas which would be there year round. When we come back after the break,

how Suki learns that frozen foods are not as easy to make as they are to reheat. And why she and her family almost signed the papers on a $3 million investment, but then decide the night before to pull the plug. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2007, 2008, and Suki's decided to... branch out from bottled sauces into refrigerated and frozen foods, things like chicken tequila and lemon rice and samosas. But that raises the question. How are they going to get the money

to support a whole new line of products? That's a great question. You know, Guy, one of the themes, I think, of our story is had we known what we know now about how much money or how much time or how much effort a lot of this stuff takes, we probably wouldn't have started. But, you know, at the time, you don't know what you don't know. You know, you look at it and you go, gosh, we're doing these products. We're doing this and the other. And so frozen foods can't be that much harder. And it's just, you know, we're already doing fresh.

Let's just do frozen. And so, you know, we looked at a bunch of competitors. And I was sitting there and I said, gosh, you know, it would be so great. Indian food is so great with Nan. It would be so awesome if this frozen entree came with non. in it. So I called up five of my friends and I said, hey, would you guys pay a buck more on the shelf if, you know, if you saw a product that had none in it versus one that didn't. And they, you know, unanimously everyone was like, yes. And I was like, okay, let's do it and let's put it in the

stores and see what happens. And there was, you know, my sisters had joined, I had joined. There was definitely a lot of, you know, fresh blood in the company. There was a lot of excitement. We saw a big path ahead. And so we kind of took a lot of these opportunities and just said, let's do it. And we learned along the way. For frozen food, I mean, you had a facility. Were you able to make a it there or are there factories that you work with and that they package it and they, you know, they make it on your behalf? No, because it was a USDA facility and we could package meats.

Yeah, so this facility that we'd gotten, they were doing frozen meals for other companies to come pick up. It was like an elderly home, I think, that they were doing some meals for. So you could package it yourself. Yes. All we had to invest in was a ceiling machine. Everything else, the braziers and the coolers, everything was there. Yeah, it was a hand sealer.

So we had this machine that we would just have with a hand crank on it and you would press it down and it would seal two trays at one time. That's what we started with. Now, meanwhile, this is absolutely amazing. Somewhere along the line, someone from Costco discovers you guys at a farmer's market. So I guess when your frozen meals were ready to go, you were actually able to get them placed into some Costco's pretty quickly, which is your. huge, right? Yeah, Costco is really just an incredible retailer. I mean, when you think about Costco, I think the image of like a big box warehouse, massive volume, very sterile. I mean, that's like the thought that comes to your mind, but they're actually one of the most thoughtful, you know,

amazing partners that we have and they really think about what they're putting in. And they have incredible, they have an incredible ability to target actually down to the entire, to the exact store. So sometimes you'll see stuff that's, you know, specific only to five Costco's in the entire country. And so they saw that there was this growing Indian population and they said, hey, can you guys put product into these five, six locations where there's a bunch of Indians and we'll see how it goes and we just expanded from there. We were experimenting with all kinds of stuff with Costco. Costco was our launching pad for anything. Costco's were really now what farmers markets used to be for us. But unlike retail stores or food service accounts, they pay you

within 15 days. So you have not paid your vendors yet and you get the money from Costco. So they're an excellent, excellent company to deal with, especially in your growth period. How did you, I mean, I know 2006, your revenues around $3 million, and you just, between 2006 and 2015, I think, you know, every year you were growing and growing. But I'm curious, how did you, because you go into a market or Costco and there are thousands of brands. and products there. How did you create brand awareness? I mean, just putting your stuff in a store, it's a great achievement, but it doesn't necessarily

guarantee success. That's something that we definitely, you know, again, one of those things that you don't know what you don't know. And I think a lot of food businesses specifically early on, you know, we get really excited when you get into Publix or Safeway or Kroger, one of these big stores. And you realize that, you know, as much of a crowning achievement that is to get on the shelf, really 99% of the work comes afterwards. to get it off of the shelf.

And that's something that we, you know, we struggled with early on for sure. We had a really hard time, you know, as we expanded out. And we would get into store chains and then get discontinued because the product wasn't moving and we weren't doing a good job. And then we started to get smarter about, you know, where it is that we're putting the product in. And we didn't have money to buy data, for example. You know, there's lots of companies that will sell you data of where this demographic a person is and this, this, that, the other.

We would follow the lead a lot of times of Costco. or of Whole Foods, where we saw a lot of our hop-bar food selling, we would then try to get into those areas with our retail product and make sure that we are where consumers are looking for this type of product. As you were growing, I gather you started to get inquiries from potential investors who wanted to invest in the business. And did you ever take on any outside investment? We did have a company come to us and say that they could,

they saw this future for the company and that they would bring in X number of dollars. So we were very wary of that because we had never lost money to date. We'd always made money. We'd always been in the black. We did not take any loans other than off and on we took bank loans for fixing the kitchen or something like that. But we did not take any outside investment. So I said, project to us, what would be our sales like and our cost like in the following year

that you brought this money in. And when they put it together, they were going to bring in the money, which we would use to pay them and pay ourselves higher salaries. So we were nearly signing the papers with them because we felt this need that we needed more experienced guidance to do what we were doing. But then we had to sign the papers the next morning, and I got everybody home that night to have dinner.

And I said, listen, I'm not feeling good about this. I don't want to sign these papers. Yeah, we were raising money because we thought, hey, we need this money to grow and this and that. And when you do all the modeling and the projections, and you know, you kind of realize that if you don't need the money and you look at the projections after you take on investment, it's not that great. Yeah. You know, the VC model for the most part is if you win, we win, but if you lose, we still kind of win in this process. And it sounds awkward to say it because, you know, people work so hard to raise money and it's such a great event

for people. But for us at that time, it just something wasn't clicking. How much money were you trying to raise, by the way, at the time? Three million is what they were going to bring in, right? Yep. And so you had three million committed, and you're about to sign the papers, and then you decided not to do it. Yeah. Wow.

I still remember this day. I mean, we're all sitting around the dinner table, and we all decided, hey, let's not do this. We're not going to do it. And all of a sudden, you could sense it in the room. There was this big sigh of relief, like, okay, we don't have to do this. And then we went on and we grew the business without it. it. Yeah. I mean, the company is growing. I think by 2015, you hit, you know, like 12 to 13 million

dollars in revenue a year, maybe a bit more. Yes. But that same year, 2015, I read that you guys described the business hitting a wall. What, what did that mean? You know, for us, the wall meant, you know, we're a family business. We're all in the family business. And each person was doing something different. And what would happen is, you know, I would go down or Sinojou or mom and we would come back and have sold a new customer. And then we'd go to my sister who was operations and say, hey, we just, you know, this so-and-so customer wants, you know, 200 pallets of this item, this winter. And, you know, she would freak out and just say, hey, look, we haven't planned this properly. Like, we can't, we can't keep doing it this way. We can't just grow for the sake of growth.

and we need to plan things. And having that family connection, it was harder for us to do those things a little bit. And there was this, you know, need to separate the business from our family life. And, you know, we realized, hey, we could, you know, we need some outside intervention here to help us see this business to its potential, but more importantly, really to preserve, to preserve a lot of our family. I personally, I had, I told the children, I said, listen, somebody asks us to make something, we make it. But I do not know how to grow this business strategically anymore.

I do not know. I need somebody else. I knew that I was at the end of my knowledge what to do. We needed somebody with more experience who could direct us as what to do. And that was the year that you hired your first outside CEO, right? Yes. There was a gentleman by the name of Bob McKenry. He'd run some companies in the past, and he came to us at just the right time.

Yes. Unlike the previous company coming to us and saying, we give you money and all that, just just felt right. He just said, I know I can take this places. And we haven't looked back since he has done a great job. I mean, what do you think the turning point is like, I mean, because I think today you're, you're still fully privately owned or do you have any outside investors? No, we're fully privately owned.

And so presumably you don't reveal maybe special. specific revenues, but I think, Suki, you mentioned a few years ago that you were a $45 million business. We're north of that. Yeah, much north of that. So what explains, in your view, the growth? I mean, obviously, there's some smart business decisions, but do you think it just happened organically?

I mean, is it just that more and more people kind of began to understand and appreciate Indian food? Was it more visibility? was it a version of all those things? Basically, yes, it was Indian food had come to stay. And like I say, there are only two kinds of people in this world, those who love Indian food and those who haven't eaten it yet. And we have seen the response to Indian food growing over the years.

Through COVID, we really increased retail. Yeah. It really jumped up the way we were hoping it would earlier on. But that's when it really jumped up. I feel like as long as we're going, we've been in this business, you know, everyone's been forecasting that Indian food is really going to be the next hot cuisine is going back as far as like 95. Right. But I really feel like it's there now. I mean, for us, when we used to do the demos in the farmers markets at someplace at 7 in the morning,

and kids are one of the best tasters and samplers and things. And so you'd have these kids come up and go like, oh, can I try a samosa? Because we'd always be sampling. You know, that's, that was the taste of food is amazing. And so we'd always sample and these kids would come up and their parents would come up. And their parents would come and say, oh, Johnny, please no, you're not going to like it. It's going to be too spicy for you. It's going to be too hot for you and this, that, and the other. And now you're out and moms come up with toddlers in their carts and they'll pick up a sample and they'll give the toddler the sample before they eat it themselves. It's a completely different time for Indian food and the awareness. And really, people are, they're interested in the story and the background,

but first and foremost, they care about taste and Indian food delivers that in spades. Today, I think you're, how many products do you have do you sell? We're north of about 50 products today. And what is your biggest seller? Is it the frozen foods? It's the refrigerated chicken ticama salo. So where do you see, I mean, you're a privately held company. I mean, do you, is there a world where you might consider selling to a larger company?

Or, you know, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, I'm sure it's come up or it may come up. What do you think you would do? They came a point in the middle when we had just set up the San Leandro kitchen, somebody came to us and said, we'll buy the company for so much and we'll give you a job in it. And we got really tempted because their childhood, the children's childhood was going and doing demos and weekends.

We didn't give them any holidays. We didn't take any holidays. And we didn't have enough money at that time to buy a house. So we got very tempted and we came home and talked to Dalbir and Sanjouk, Bonnie had already got married and we said we are planning to sell the business and Dalvis said why are you going to sell the business? I said because we're giving you such a rough life. We want to be able to let you have a childhood which you're not having at this point. And he said so are we complaining? You mean to say that when we come into this place it will belong to somebody else? We don't mind the hard work.

This is the place that we get together and we plan things and do things together. We have no issues of not having time off and we didn't sell. But, you know, I'm not getting younger. My husband is already retired. Delvir has kind of stepped partially away. He still gets involved in the company wherever we need him to. Yeah. So we would sell if the right person came along, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I think there's no particular plan to do that. And I think if you were to talk to mom on any given day, she might give you a different answer, much like most entrepreneurs. And so, I don't know, the way that I think about it is, you know, we don't have any plans to sell at the moment. And, you know, the business is a living, growing, breathing person and it's going to evolve.

I mean, it is pretty remarkable that, Suki, I mean, you were $70,000 in debt 30 years ago. But it was a long slog to turn this into a very successful business. I mean, it is a very successful business. I mean, And how much do you think just what happened to this brand and you guys has to do with just getting lucky and how much do you think has to do with how hard you work? So all I say, you know, you have to be at the right time, at the right place with the right amount of luck. And I think all three contributed to us. And also we had people come into our lives or into the business which just took us from point A to point B. And, you know, there's a saying which I 100% believe in one is one, but one in one is not two. It becomes 11.

And the third one becomes 111. And as every family member joined, our growth possibilities increased and we were able to do a lot more. Yeah. And I think about this question, you know, a couple of different ways. You know, one is perspective. For mom, if she hadn't taken the right attitude towards the fire and worked through that fire situation or or done so many things where it was a make or break moment for the company that we wouldn't be here today.

And that's pure hard work. But for me, it's luck. You know, it's being born into a certain family, having a certain mom, that would do those types of things. And so it's not either or, but a both. So, you know, 17 years coming into the country, we worked, Sundar and I worked seven days a week, 14 hours a day. The only time we would get together was a Sunday evening

when everybody did their farmers markets or demos and came back, that was the only meal in the evening that we all shared together. It was sheer, hard labor that we did. And the children, of course, put in just as much from day one. So those were the things which really, I think, supplied the fire and the fuel to the company. That's Suki Singh, founder of Suki's Gourmet Indian Food, and her son, Delbir Singh. And by the way, the company only stopped selling,

at farmers markets about three years ago. But members of the family still occasionally host demos at Costco. They say it's still the best way to connect with people who have never tried a good chicken teka masala. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to contact us, our email address is hibt at npr.org. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at,

How I Built This, and mine is at Guy Raz. And our Instagram account is at How I Built This NPR, and mine is at guy.org. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger with music composed by Rumtin Ereblewe. It was edited by Neba Grant with research help from Claire Moroshima. Our production staff includes Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Julia Carney, Elaine Coates, Carrie Thompson, and Alex Chung. Our intern is Margaret Serino. Jeff Rogers is our executive producer.

I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this.