Reprinted from Issues in Vegetarian Dietetics, Volume IX, Number 3 . Spring 2000

 

 

 

Vegetarian Dietetics in Action

 

An interview with Jyoti Gupta, MS, RD

     President of Jyoti Cuisine India

 

 

Jyoti, how did you become inter­ested in vegetarian diets?

 

I was born and raised in India, so I grew up eating traditional vegetarian meals. They were nutritious and very tasty! Then I studied nutrition in the United States and completed my Master’s degree in Houston in 1979.

 

When did you decide to manufac­ture canned Indian foods?

 

When I finished school my husband was working as an engineer and I prac­ticed as a clinical dietitian, but we both wanted to do something on our own. We thought of starting a food business. At that time Indian food was virtually un­known in Texas, but it was the cuisine I knew best and I think it is the most highly developed vegetarian cuisine. Our idea was to have some delicious Indian food that consumers could pick up at the store and bring home to eat instead of having to go to a restaurant to get Indian food. We both continued to work in our other jobs while we developed the business ‑ and to this day my husband is still a full‑time engineer, and I still work part‑time as a consultant dietitian. We started doing research and had a small pilot canning operation in our own kitchen. I developed and tested recipes that we wanted to can. When I canned our first product and tasted it after twenty‑four hours, it was great, so I placed an ad in Gourmet magazine. But when we tested it after one week. it was awful! We had to be very resourceful to deal with this situation, so we decided to sell the product in two separate cans as a set and let the consumer mix them together. That way the ingredi­ents would not react with each other in the can.

 

Were you able to conduct this business out of your home?

 

No. I did some recipe development at home, but I found a cannery in New Orleans to run big pilot batches and then prepare the finished product. When we moved to Philadelphia I had to locate a new cannery that was closer to my home, and l have worked with several canneries since then. In the early days most of my business was by mail order through maga­zines, and I would bring the cans back to my home and ship them by UPS myself.

 

In addition to advertising in maga­zines, how else did you market your product?

 

I traveled all through the Texas and Louisiana area to get publicity. There was nothing else on the market like our food, so it generated a lot of interest. There were many newspaper write-ups about our en­terprise that really helped to boost busi­ness. In 1980 Whole Foods started sell­ing our product. In those days it was just a single store in Austin, Texas, but the Whole Foods chain still carries our line today. We found out very quickly that haying only one product is not enough, so we developed other sauces and ex­panded our marketing to trade shows and the Natural Foods Expo. We still do magazine advertising and mail order also.

 

What skills and training did you need to be able to run your busi­ness?

 

My basic background as an R.D. helped to get me started but I learned many things along the way I took a one­ week course to be certified as a thermal process operator because an understand­ing of the canning process is very impor­tant. What goes into the can is quite dif­ferent from what comes out of the can, since most of the cooking occurs after a can is filled and sealed. For example, the flavor from spices like bay leaves, cloves or cinnamon continues to be extracted while sitting in the can, so you should not add the same amount you would add if cooking the dish to eat right away. There is also the ‘business end’ of the business to consider ‑ you have to learn a little bookkeeping and a little of everything else.

 

Did you run into any problems as your business grew?

 

Yes. We found that it was difficult to work with canning companies ‑ they kept closing down, or didn’t deliver on time, or the quality wasn’t as high as we wanted. The problems stemmed mostly from their lack of familiarity‑ with the ingredients and taste of our foods. Small volume require­ments also contributed to frequent out­ages, long delays in filling orders, and so on. Another problem we had was that the technology for sorting beans was not very good. Foreign debris, stones, metal, etc., in the imported beans we used were not completely removed and this became a major source of customer complaints. Sometimes consumers would sue. The canners were responsible and had to handle the suits, but we were very un­happy about the situation. My husband decided to work on the problem and even­tually got a patent for a new sorting de­vice that is much better than the old tech­nology. This enabled us to open our own factory in April 1997. Other companies that need to sort beans and grains, like Campbell’s and Uncle Ben’s, are interested in our new device.

 

How has having your own factory changed your business?

 

If it were not for my husband’s new technology, we would have closed down. Now we are able to prepare foods to our own high standards. In addition, having the plant has allowed me not only to improve existing products, but to venture into new things, like fire roasted peanuts and meals for the airlines. We make the Hindu, Muslim, and Asian vegetarian meals for US Airways nationwide, and for some British Airways flights. We cook and freeze these meals so that the airlines need only to heat and serve them. We had to prepare samples, get microbiological re­ports on each food, supply full nutritional information and a detailed ingredients list­ing, etc., before the airlines would con­tract with us. It was very demanding, but now we are in a position to supply similar services to other institutions, such as school cafeterias and health care facilities. We welcome inquiries from anyone inter­ested in our services.

 

Do you have any advice for other dietitians?

 

Any dietitian interested in canning foods should have a good background in food science and technology, and in ther­mal processes for canning. I also would recommend finding distributors to handle your product since it is very difficult to work directly with retail stores. I think the most important thing, however, is for dietitians is to pay atten­tion to the vast field of fine foods that are nutritious, varied and tasty. Vegetarian foods do not have to be as limited as many Americans think they are. India has been pre‑eminent in vegetarian cooking, but there are many more cooking styles that one should not ignore. Explore those!

 

JYOTI brand products are sold in natural foods chains, ethnic grocery stores and in the specialty foods sections of some supermarkets. You can order a catalog or e-mail Jyoti through her website at www.jyotifoods.com