For Sumeet Saigal, founder and CEO of SugarCube Foods, featuring on the television reality show MasterChef has realised a dream: To share her passion for pan-Indian cuisine with the broader Australian community.
Known on MasterChef Australia as the ‘Sauce Boss’, Saigal turned a Simmersauce Challenge win into a listing in Coles that sold out fast, and led to her launching her own brand, Masala Makers. That range built across four regions of India, from Punjab to the Malabar coast.
Thanks to her MasterChef fame, Saigal has built a direct relationship with consumers that most established brands spend decades and large budgets trying to create.
“The dream was always there, but MasterChef gave me the runway,” she told Amie Larter, CEO of Octomedia, the publisher of Inside FMCG, and Angeline Achariya, Asia Pacific chair of the Food Systems Innovation and Resilience Wing, with the G100 Mission Million, in the latest edition of the podcast series Women Transforming Food.
That runway led Saigal to launch Masala Makers with four regional sauces, rather than one flavour, and a plan to expand later – a heavier commercial and operational load from day one for a solo founder.
After her MasterChef success, Saigal considered it would have been an injustice to come out with just one or two SKUs, because that would not demonstrate to Australians the real breadth and depth of flavours in Indian cuisine.
Saigal has a Punjabi background, but she grew up in Bangalore, in the south of India, which shaped her passion for food and her exposure to its varied flavours.
“I feel privileged to be a Punjabi who was brought up in the south because I got the opportunity to try so many different flavour profiles, and Bangalore itself is quite a melting pot of cultures within India, so we were exposed to so many things. I had friends that would bring South Indian tiffin boxes (the stacking stainless steel containers called dabbas used to pack meals and the light breakfast or snack items (tiffins) packed inside them) to school. We would get to try those beautiful flavours of curry leaves and lemon and tamarind and the sourness and the sweetness and all of that.
“I had Gujarati friends that would bring the sweet dalis and the lentils, which were different flavoured. And I had Muslim friends that we used to go to for the Eid festivals and have their beautiful spread of biryanis, and their kheer (an Indian sweet milk pudding made by slow-cooking rice, milk, and sugar). That definitely shaped me in deeper ways than I realise, and it seems to have obviously expressed itself in what I’m doing now.”
Indian food, she explains, reflects “everyday versatility” for over 1.6 billion people around the world. “It is food we eat every day of the week. It has always been a philosophy for me that we tend to box the Indian flavours as just a curry night, but they are actually really versatile. They can be put into a lot of different formats. We’ve been doing that in India for centuries.”
The French, for example, entered Pondicherry (officially named Puducherry), the coastal union territory of India, an enclave surrounded by the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu and the Bay of Bengal. Their influence led to infusing French traditional bouillabaisse with Indian spices including tamarind and coconut. So after many centuries, it seems only natural to Saigal that the current Western world often adapts and uses those flavours across multiple cuisines.
“With my sauces, I’ve really tried to bring the flavours in a way that they can be transferred into regular meals that normal families are actually cooking daily. I have made the flavours transferable: You can make a curry out of it one day and a pasta the next; or use it on a pizza base for the kids. I have had customers tell me they’re using it as a dip for their chicken wings and their wedges, which is great because that’s what modern eating is about.”
Saigal says having the MasterChef journey behind her has built a community that can already relate to her, giving her a significant advantage in launching a product. “I have the opportunity to relate to people on a one-to-one basis, where they can see me as someone that looks Indian, is from India, and has lived here for many years of my life, actually using those sauces in different ways that do not seem so much of a blasphemy when somebody else does it. It is almost permitting people to say: ‘You can do this. You can have fun with it. Go out and use it the way you want to, and that is where the whole education piece is a big part of the whole story and the brand’.”
But she is very aware of the importance of blending her passion and knowledge around food with solid retail data. “It is like your left and your right hand almost. The retail data was extremely important because just an idea and a philosophy does not necessarily translate into commercial success, as we all know. The retail data tells me what sells, but the engagement tells me why it sells.
“That is really important for me because when I was on MasterChef and did the sauce on the show, there was so much engagement. People were so connected with the story of me walking into the MasterChef kitchen with a dream … and for it to come to fruition. I remember when I was on the show, I said something to the effect of ‘when you’re buying the sauce, you are not just buying the sauce; you’re buying the manifestation of a dream that should make you believe in yourself.”
Brands usually take years to build engagement; thanks to MasterChef, Saigal started with that.
- Listen to the podcast to hear Saigal explain the importance of earning trust with consumers, understanding sensitivities around gender, beliefs, and language across cultures, and the next steps that lie ahead for SugarCube Foods.
